Free Republic

China Investment Corp, the country's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, is set to pour up to $2 billion soon into the U.S. mortgage system by hiring mandates under the U.S. Treasury-backed Public-Private Investment Plan (PPIP), sources told Reuters. Snip

Now that we've got the buy-side managers for the Obama adminstrations Public Private Investment Program lined up, the question is whether there will be anyone on the sell-side. With the buy-side guys saying that the P-PIP will allow them to pay between 5% and 10% more for toxic assets, you might think banks would be all over this thing. But that's not how its shaping up. The P-PIP is still stumbling. Many are now wondering whether bankers will sell into the program. We suspended mark-to-market. "A month after the PPIP program was announced, under pressure from banks and Congress, the...

Back in April, the Department of Treasury released this statement about the criteria they were looking for in determining companies that would be eligible to compete to be bidders in the private public investment partnership. (PPIP) The Treasury Department today announced the receipt of more than 100 unique applications from potential fund managers interested in participating in the Legacy Securities portion of the Public Private Investment Program (PPIP). A variety of institutions applied, including traditional fixed income, real estate, and alternative asset managers.

Washington and Los Angeles -- In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes. The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program. ..... The report said little about who is under investigation and how the fraudulent schemes work, but investigators are already on alert for a long list...

A research firm says the U.S. lost $104 billion on the ownership stakes it took in financial companies in return for TARP funds. Losses could mount While the U.S. government keeps doling out taxpayer money in a frenzied effort to save the financial system, more scrutiny is being paid to what the government is getting in return for its bailouts—and how big a loss taxpayers are likely to suffer in the end. Elizabeth Warren, who heads the Congressional Oversight Panel responsible for keeping tabs on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), estimates that $590.4 billion of the total $700 billion...

Game theory tells us that a risk neutral gambler would pay $50 dollars for a coin flip that paid $0 for Heads and $100 for Tails. Game theorists would call $50 the value of the bet. Suppose someone is willing to fund your gambling problem, and lend you $80 at zero interest. Better still, if you lose the bet you don’t have to pay him back. Under that scenario, the same gambler would pay $90 for the bet, giving him an even chance of winning or losing $10. This is a microcosm of what the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) is...

Tim Geithner's Public-Private Investment Program--or Pee-Pip, as they're calling it in Washington--grants a massive subsidy to banks by encouraging investors to overpay for trash assets. We've explained this a number of times, in a number of ways. But perhaps the clearest explanation we've come across was written by David Kotok, the chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisers. Here it is: Dear Reader: Please give me 8 minutes to explain the $1.1 trillion federal government Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP).

THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose. Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency. Let’s take a moment to remember what caused this mess in the first place....

The Geithner-Summers plan, officially called the public/private investment programme, is a thinly veiled attempt to transfer up to hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to the commercial banks, by buying toxic assets from the banks at far above their market value. It is dressed up as a market transaction but that is a fig-leaf, since the government will put in 90 per cent or more of the funds and the “price discovery” process is not genuine. It is no surprise that stock market capitalisation of the banks has risen about 50 per cent from the lows of...

<p>As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner orchestrated a plan to help the nation's largest banks purge themselves of toxic mortgage assets, Citigroup and Bank of America have been aggressively scooping up those same securities in the secondary market, sources told The Post.</p>

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today announced a public-public partnership with PBS to produce and host a program tentatively dubbed 'Legacy Assets Roadshow', with a format reminiscent of the network's popular 'Antiques Roadshow.' Part adventure, part history lesson, and part treasure hunt, the Legacy Assets Roadshow hopes to "tap the viewer's ongoing curiosity about whether that dusty old thing that looks virtually worthless might turn out to be a precious keepsake worth big bucks." Geithner plans to travel to locations around the nation inviting bankers and other financial firm executives to bring in mortgages, mortgaged-backed securities and other items formerly known...

$500 Billion to $1 Trillion Plan to Purchase Legacy Assets Overview Troubled real estate-related assets, comprised of legacy loans and securities, are at the center of the problems currently impacting the U.S. financial system. The Financial Stability Plan, announced on February 10th, outlined a broad approach to address this issue via the formation of Public-Private Investment Funds (“PPIFs”). Today Treasury is announcing the Public-Private Investment Program under which it will make targeted investments in multiple PPIFs that will purchase legacy real estate-related assets. Addressing the problems created by legacy assets should help to improve the health of the financial institutions...