Insurers: MBIA lost $806.5 million and Ambac Financial lost $2.43 billion
By Daniel at 5 November, 2008, 11:21 am
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It is now definitely getting more attention to investors. The insurers’ expectation isn’t even close to the actual numbers. This is just horrific.
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Bond insurer MBIA reported a widening third-quarter loss of $806.5 million, or $3.48 a share, from a loss of $36.6 million, or 30 cents a share. The company blamed increases to loss reserves on the its second lien residential mortgage exposures and net realized and unrealized losses attributable to the company’s Asset Liability Management business. After-tax operating loss for the third quarter of 2008 was $514.8 million, or $2.22 per share, compared with after-tax operating income of $192.6 million, or $1.56 per share in the same period of 2007. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of 81 cents a share.
Ambac Financial Group Inc. said its third-quarter loss widened to $2.43 billion, or $8.45 a share, from a $360.6 million, or $3.53 a share, loss.
The company blamed the bigger loss on hits from credit derivatives, increased loss provisioning primarily related to second-lien residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) insurance transactions and market losses on RMBS within the financial services investment portfolio.
Its operating loss was $7.81 a share, against the 74 cents a share loss that analysts forecast by FactSet estimated.
Shares of Ambac were off more than 20% in early trading Wednesday.
Ambac in late October asked the Treasury Department to guarantee bond insurers’ securities and also portfolio losses to a certain point, under the Treasury’s financial rescue plan. The company recently named a new chief executive, David Wallis.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bond-insurers-ambac-mbia-report/story.aspx?guid=%7B98D9145B%2D0437%2D4AF8%2DBF18%2DEA105C71D9FE%7D&dist=TQP_Mod_mktwN
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