Financial Reform Watch : Financial Services News & Information : Blank Rome Government Relations Lobbying Firm : Government Relations, Corporate Governance : Financial Reform Watch Law Blog

After nearly four months of delay, the Treasury on Wednesday launched the Legacy Securities program—a key component of the administration’s Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) aimed at relieving financial institutions of illiquid assets that continue to hamper the flow of credit markets.

Scaling back the scope of the Legacy Securities program as originally envisioned in March, the Treasury, together with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve, offered a framework that will provide government investments of up to $30 billion so that private sector fund managers and private investors might purchase legacy commercial mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and non-agency MBS off the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions.

Selected from a pool of over 100 applicants, below is a list of the nine private fund managers pre-qualified by Treasury to participate in the initial round of the Legacy Securities program:

• AllianceBernstein, LP and its sub-advisors Greenfield Partners, LLC and Rialto Capital Management, LLC
• Angelo, Gordon & Co., L.P. and GE Capital Real Estate
• BlackRock, Inc.
• Invesco Ltd.
• Marathon Asset Management, L.P.
• Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.
• RLJ Western Asset Management, LP.
• The TCW Group, Inc.
• Wellington Management Company, LLP

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Investors will have to wait longer than expected for the Legacy Loans Program (LLP), the FDIC half of the Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) to relieve banks of their troubled assets. The LLP pilot, which the FDIC had originally planned to launch in June, will now be postponed indefinitely. In its place, however, the FDIC plans to “test the funding mechanism contemplated by the LLP” by selling receivership assets. The FDIC says it will draw “upon concepts successfully employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation in the 1990s, which routinely assisted in the financing of asset sales through responsible use of leverage.” The FDIC says it will “solicit bids for this sale of receivership assets in July.”

While FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the FDIC will continue to work on developing the legacy loans program in order to “offer it in the future,” she explained the reason for the postponement was that banks lately have been raising capital without it, reflecting “renewed investor confidence in our banking system.” She went on to say, “As a consequence, banks and their supervisors will take additional time to assess the magnitude and timing of troubled asset sales as part of our larger efforts to strengthen the banking sector.”

There was no mention whether or not the Legacy Securities Program, which is managed by the Federal Reserve and Treasury, would be delayed. One could reasonably guess, reading between the lines, that banks have been less than enthusiastic about discounting and selling loans through the LLP.
 

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At last Treasury has come forward with its Public Private Investment Program for dealing with toxic assets, only now that there is a plan, the proper term is “troubled legacy assets.” Stocks have rallied since Treasury announced the plan this morning, and legislators on Capitol Hill have halted their rush to claw back the AIG bonus money, some say partly in order to study the new plan. The Treasury Secretary is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday. Will the positive momentum continue up to and following his hearing performance? Secretary Geithner has a lot riding on this week.

The plan, which will use $100 billion of TARP funds, has two parts intended to revive the anemic financial system—the Public Private Investment Fund (PPIF) for Legacy Loans and the PPIF for Legacy Securities. Both are aimed at residential and commercial real estate-related assets. Banks tend to hold the assets as loans and entities such as insurers, pension funds, mutual funds and individual retirement accounts tend to hold the assets as securities backed by loans. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation with Treasury will work to create PPIFs that will purchase “loans and other asset pools” from participating banks, and the FDIC will determine eligibility criteria. The FDIC will also be using contractors to help it analyze loan pools and determine the level of debt to be issued by the PPIFs (with leverage not exceeding a 6 to 1 debt-to-equity ratio). The FDIC will then auction off each loan pool to the highest bidder. Treasury will provide 50 percent of equity financing and the private sector auction winner will provide the other 50 percent. The private sector winner can obtain financing by issuing new debt, which the FDIC will guarantee, that is collateralized by the purchase.

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