permabear

A few articles to get you up to speed on the MFIN (fka TAXI) situation. The first one is a winding tale of how the company hired a NYC fashion model to head investor relations, and post highly promotional articles on Huffington Post and comments on Seeking Alpha and Yahoo Finance under a pseudonym. The article highlights this is a potential securities law violation; it is also just plain stupid. Enjoy! [*]Fashion model turned cab finance company promoter takes Medallion Financial investors for a ride - Debtwire Jan 27, 2017 - http://www.debtwire.com/info/2017/01/27/fashion-model-turned-cab-finance-company-promoter-takes-medallion-financial-investors-ride/ [*]Medallion Financial Becomes House Of Cards As Ride-Hailing Apps Hammer Yellow Taxi Market - Forbes Jan 3, 2017 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/debtwire/2017/01/03/medallion-financial-becomes-house-of-cards-as-ride-hailing-apps-hammer-yellow-taxi-market/#55584bba7081 [*]Medallion Financial: Failed Taxi Empire On A Crash Course With Creditors - Part II - Seeking Alpha Dec 20, 2016 - http://seekingalpha.com/article/4031657-medallion-financial-failed-taxi-empire-crash-course-creditors-part-ii

Thanks! It strikes me as high, but I can see it

Garth Turner recently wrote: "over 50% of all GTA condos go to flippers and amateur landlords" Does anyone have a source for this? Much appreciated

I wrote up MFIN (fka TAXI) for anyone interested - On Seeking Alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/4024104-medallion-financial-failed-taxi-empire-crash-course-creditors - On SumZero: https://sumzero.com/pro/research/ideas/12944

I wrote up MFIN (fka TAXI) for anyone interested - On Seeking Alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/4024104-medallion-financial-failed-taxi-empire-crash-course-creditors - On SumZero: https://sumzero.com/pro/research/ideas/12944

Look what I found buried in the Risk Factors section of the latest Q... looks like FDIC is already involved here "As a regulated entity, Medallion Bank is subject to periodic routine examination from its regulators. Medallion Bank is currently undergoing such an examination, and while the final results of the examination are unknown at this time, it is possible that the regulators could require additional loan loss reserves or other financial adjustments at the Bank. While this would be, if it occurs at all, a subsequent event to our current regulatory filings, it is possible that the regulators could require the Bank to record any adjustment as a restatement of the Bank’s previously filed regulatory reports, resulting in certain of the supplemental Medallion Bank disclosures in this Form 10-Q to differ from the adjusted numbers. The Company would assess as appropriate any such restatement to the Bank’s regulatory reports and its effect, if any, on the carrying value of Medallion Bank, and if there is no material change on the carrying value there would be no change required in the Form 10-Q."

@Schwab711 Cheers! Keep an eye on this one, it is going to be interesting. They just defaulted on a $9m loan secured by Chicago medallions in October (no disclosure when it happened, just reported it in their Q released today), they are trying to amend/extend +1 year a similar loan for $14m due this month and their revolving line of credit (used exclusively to initiate/buy medallion loans) in the amount of $108m is due in December.

Hahah, they just did it again. Q3 2016 three months total return of... drumroll please..... Negative 168%!

Any readers of this thread have a reliable source on % of GDP attributed to housing? Cheers

Can anyone recommend some good books on China's potential real estate bubble? I am very interested in learning more after watching this: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2016/09/china-economy-160913081105227.html It just seems like something has to give here. Government levering up to finance massive, worthless ghost cities, encouraging citizens to lever up to "invest" in same... Thanks!

Can someone please help me understand this? CMHC has $523 billion insurance-in-force and $426 billion guarantees through its securitization programs ($208 billion NHA MBS + $218 billion CMB). If you are trying to get a measure of CMHC's exposure to housing, is it simply the sum of the two (insurance + securitization guarantees) or is there some overlap (double-counting) on the guarantees? i.e. say a bank lends $500 million to various borrowers, and obtains CMHC insurance on every deal ($500m of insurance). Then they pool those mortgages, securitize and sell them to investors (through NHA MBS or CMB, does it matter which one?). Now CMHC has sold insurance to the bank (the beneficiaries of which should now be the investors) and has provided a guarantee to the investors that they will receive "timely payment of interest and principal". Do they now record $500m of "insurance-in-force" and another $500m of guarantees? Thanks!

There are many different ways in which title to the loan on a property can change hands, including: 1) Sale of existing mortgage to another lender 2) Mortgage on property renewed with a different lender 3) Property is sold to a buyer with a new mortgage I can imagine in each one of these cases that there must be a transfer of charge on the property. So I don't think that definition can be so narrow to only include sales. As for what happened to those mortgages, the alternative mortgage market is huge in Canada. I believe companies like HCG and EQB hold a less than 10% market share of it. Plenty of individual investors/consortiums own mortgages. I don't think your scenarios 2 and 3 would include a transfer of charge. Rather, the new lender would provide the financing to 'take-out' the old mortgage, and add their own, new charge on the property. HCG came out with a response this morning, in which they say HCG "sells loans to third parties, when loans require work-outs or restructurings."

Quite incredible that you can pass off pure conjecture, speculation and reaching as analysis at Seeking Alpha. What specifically do you disagree with from the SA report? Unless the transfer documents themselves are a fraud, the author showed a clear link between a (not-so) independent board member's company acquiring mortgages from HCG, with no related party disclosure. The author's conclusion that these are likely delinquent borrowers is justified, in my opinion. Those documents do not detail a transfer of mortgages. The Land Registry details transfer of land titles. To insinuate that these were mortgages that were transferred is a falsehood and the reason why they were transferred were that they were non-performing is complete conjecture. Banks sell mortgages all the time. And banks sell land as well. The author of that report just basically found that a board member of HCG works at a law firm that specializes in assisting mortgage lenders and somehow draws the conclusion that HCG is selling non-performing loans to an unrelated entity. At the same time, he obfuscates the following: 1) Less than 10% of the $1.9 billion in mortgages that the 45 suspended brokers accounted for were flagged for possible issues with income verification NOT "at least" $1.9 billion 2) HCG isn't trying to hide the link with Walker, otherwise how did he get his bio from HCG's management circular? Half the links on the director list on HCG isn't working not just Walker's 3) He also clips off various pieces of documents and presents it all as transactions between HCG and Re-Charge. How can we know? I could get into this more, but that'll require more time devoted to rebutting an utterly ridiculous piece. The Land Registry Office documents show a "Transfer of Charge," (see top left of document beside LRO #) which is a transfer of a lien secured by the property (i.e. a mortgage). It is not a transfer of title, as you suggest. Yes, banks sell mortgages and real property all the time, I agree. However, if a company sells anything to one of its own director's companies, that is by definition a related party transaction and must be disclosed - do you not see an issue with this at least? Regardless of whether it is a transfer of charge or title, how can you dispute that it is a related party transaction? If "Transfer of Charge" means transfer of mortgage, then I am mistaken. I took it to meaning transfer of land ownership. On the related party transaction: Walker was nominated to the board on November 2015, while those transactions were recorded from September - October 2015. Let's see what the company says. You may be right on the related party transaction (RPT) disclosure, provided there were no further transactions with Re-Charge after adding Walker to the board on Nov 4, 2015. I just looked it up online and found this from the OSC: "a RPT is a transaction between the issuer and a related party of the issuer at the time the transaction is agreed to..."

Quite incredible that you can pass off pure conjecture, speculation and reaching as analysis at Seeking Alpha. What specifically do you disagree with from the SA report? Unless the transfer documents themselves are a fraud, the author showed a clear link between a (not-so) independent board member's company acquiring mortgages from HCG, with no related party disclosure. The author's conclusion that these are likely delinquent borrowers is justified, in my opinion. Those documents do not detail a transfer of mortgages. The Land Registry details transfer of land titles. To insinuate that these were mortgages that were transferred is a falsehood and the reason why they were transferred were that they were non-performing is complete conjecture. Banks sell mortgages all the time. And banks sell land as well. The author of that report just basically found that a board member of HCG works at a law firm that specializes in assisting mortgage lenders and somehow draws the conclusion that HCG is selling non-performing loans to an unrelated entity. At the same time, he obfuscates the following: 1) Less than 10% of the $1.9 billion in mortgages that the 45 suspended brokers accounted for were flagged for possible issues with income verification NOT "at least" $1.9 billion 2) HCG isn't trying to hide the link with Walker, otherwise how did he get his bio from HCG's management circular? Half the links on the director list on HCG isn't working not just Walker's 3) He also clips off various pieces of documents and presents it all as transactions between HCG and Re-Charge. How can we know? I could get into this more, but that'll require more time devoted to rebutting an utterly ridiculous piece. The Land Registry Office documents show a "Transfer of Charge," (see top left of document beside LRO #) which is a transfer of a lien secured by the property (i.e. a mortgage). It is not a transfer of title, as you suggest. Yes, banks sell mortgages and real property all the time, I agree. However, if a company sells anything to one of its own director's companies, that is by definition a related party transaction and must be disclosed - do you not see an issue with this at least? Regardless of whether it is a transfer of charge or title, how can you dispute that it is a related party transaction?

Quite incredible that you can pass off pure conjecture, speculation and reaching as analysis at Seeking Alpha. What specifically do you disagree with from the SA report? Unless the transfer documents themselves are a fraud, the author showed a clear link between a (not-so) independent board member's company acquiring mortgages from HCG, with no related party disclosure. The author's conclusion that these are likely delinquent borrowers is justified, in my opinion.