Like A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes...Only This Is More Like A Turd Rising from the Sewer

Well, well, well. Guess who's back (besides me, of course)? Why, it's Daddy, Junior, "the other" Junior and all of their cronies. This time, they're disguised as RPM Oversight (thanks to blog reader Pete for giving us the heads-up). How ironic that the word "oversight" is in the company name, what with all of the crucial "oversights" these clowns had during the past couple of years. I also see that the utter failure and bankruptcy of FNLC wasn't mentioned in any of the exec bios, either. I guess that's just another "oversight," eh?

So, what does RPM Oversight do? According to the site:

"RPM Oversight thoroughly reviews and assesses the documentation, compliance, property value, and servicing records of every loan in every portfolio we manage."

Hmmm. Interesting. Since when are these guys concerned with "thoroughly reviewing" anything? I never realized that shipping boxes and boxes of documents out of Florida and into an unused office space in California was considered portfolio management, but to each his own...

Let's have a little fun with the "Who We Are" section of the site, shall we?

RPM Oversight is comprised of a group of highly skilled mortgage industry and legal veterans (and the Henschels, too) who specialize (don't you have to perform something on a regular basis to "specialize" in it?) in creating value and maximizing return on investments in residential mortgage loan and real estate portfolios (while cashing out assets and looking out for only the largest stakeholders when the ship starts sinking).

Our team (Daddy) has more than 100 years of combined experience in the real estate, legal, and mortgage lending industries, enabling us to assist (bilk) you in the purchase, rehabilitation, refinance, (liquidation, bankruptcy) and sale of loans for higher returns (to outstanding creditors).

Our hands-on approach allows for an indiviudal assessment of the documentation, compliance, property value and servicing records of every loan we manage, the result of which is increased returns for our clients (the jokes just write themselves, don't they?).

Our team has originated and sold more than $20 billion (worth $5 billion) in mortgage loans to Wall Street and other institutional investors (who can't come after us because we declared bankruptcy) over the last seven years (not including the past two, of course). We have negotiated the purchase and/or sale of more than $1 billion of distressed mortgage loans (including our own, but not Kent Cope's).

The company is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida (T.Rex).

This Goddamned Company Continues To Haunt Me

After taking care of my '07 taxes and getting my (unmatched) 401k contributions out of Ingham (who I always suspected were cronies of Daddy and Junior) during the past couple of months, I thought I was finally finished with ever having to deal with anything FNLC-related ever again.

Guess again.

I'm currently being subjected to a background check as I move into a new position at my current company. This morning, I was informed that the company performing the background check cannot locate any information about First NLC and cannot verify my previous employment at the company. I've been asked to provide proof by faxing my FNLC W-2 forms. As you can imagine, the idea of rummaging through my financial records and faxing personal information is not something I am comfortable with.

Fortunately, I have another card up my sleeve. Last year, when my original background check was completed, I requested my own copy of the report, which I happen to keep on hand during times like this, when I need to look up details like corporate mailing addresses and contacts in order to apply for jobs. This report has my FNLC experience confirmed, so I've referred the background checking company to their earlier work. Hopefully, that will take care of this issue.

I've worked for over a half-dozen companies in the past 15 years or so, and FNLC isn't the only one that has ceased to exist, yet they are the only one that I've ever had this kind of trouble with. A closer look at my background check reveals a possible explanation - every company has (or seems to subscribe to) some type of formalized database that provides this information. They generate a mini-report that gets rolled into my background check. Every one, that is, except for FNLC. My FNLC work history confirmation consisted of a note from FNLC HR and an explanation that FNLC doesn't provide further information.

Should it surprise any of us that FNLC "did what was required" by cutting corners and relying on manual, outdated methods to compile employee records? Of course not. This is just another example of how the company would take the easiest and cheapest path for anything that did not contribute to profits.

Well, guess what, Daddy and Junior? All of that sneaky and self-serving penny-pinching still didn't keep your asses from being kicked to the curb by FBR. Oh, I'm sure you think that you'll just ride out the storm and show up again when the market is ripe for small-minded, greedy, ignorant fools to make boatloads of money, but it's never happening for you again. Your name is mud in this industry and your reputations will be forever tarnished by your actions over the past three years, when you could have kept the ship from sinking but instead focused on moving into T. Rex, petty sibling squabbles and watching the FBR stock ticker.

I know some of you may still be looking for work, so I'd like to encourage everybody to be prepared for a similar situation, since, according to my resources, your tenure at First NLC may have never "officially" existed.

New Message Board for Former FNLC'ers

Former employee Shawn has put together a message board for the ex-FNLC community. Stop by and leave your thoughts when you get a chance:

http://exnlc.activeboard.com/

More Negative Feedback

Really - I think the Copes should have just turned down the CNN Money story. I don't wish anybody ill will, but that won't stop me from compiling choice comments and posts from other blogs. Again, the validity of the unemployment claims and the "woe is us" mentality has certainly touched a raw nerve in the blogosphere.

Check out the latest smackdown, courtesy of Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking. The author has upped the ante by posting photos of the couple's home and the jewelry that they are trying to sell. One commenter noted that one piece of jewelry sold for a whopping $0.99 on eBay -haven't they heard of "reserve prices?" Here are some quotes:

• So let me get this straight. These highly skilled people are reduced to selling trinkets. I get the impression that just about any unskilled person could make a 6 digit income in the sub-prime loan business.
• So we're supposed to shed a tear for these clowns?
• My old Aunt in North Carolina always called these people, "pigs in finery". . .basically people who live the big life with no real money - just working class people with delusions of being grand!. . .can't people just live withing their means??
• She had about a dozen items up last week, all with buy-it-now (not auctions), and none sold.
• Good grief, who would wear that crap! That looks like the kind of crap tourists buy from the beach vendors on vacation and give as gifts to friends and family when they get home. It all goes in the trash as soon as they leave. BTW, her eBay feedback rating is a 1. She played it off to CNN as if she had a successful eBay business. A 1 is far from successful. Friggin' tools!
• Looks like I'm not the only one who's really astounded by the stupidity of people in this industry.
• I hope they had a lot of New Century Financial stock. If they didn't, then they didn't truly believe in what they were doing, and they deserve to suffer.
• Both of them worked for New Century. One of the biggest subprime boiler rooms that existed before the ponzi scheme collapsed. Subprime was all they did. They gave loans to anyone, no documenation, no proof of collateral was required. No proof of identification or citizenship was required!!!
• The picture of the jewelry is kind of funny. Did you notice how it is staged underwater? It is a situation they are very familiar with.
• Duane Kent Cope. Duane can't cope? Not anymore he Kent!
• These people are toast, with little to no true skills of value to EVER have the same lifestyle they had before. Check out Mysti's Linkedin profile. No degree. Was an assistant store manager prior to her VP role. I wonder how she got her job. Best she will ever earn is probably $30K per year at the local retail chain store. Welcome back to the REAL world folks.

Negative Feedback For A Sob Story - Ain't It A Bitch?

Looks like the subjects of that CNN Money article aren't getting much sympathy in the wake of the subprime fallout. Instead of people feeling sorry for them, they seem to have garnered more than their fair share of criticism. Let's take a look, shall we?

First, we have Stu's Rusty Bucket, who has done a nice job of inserting his/her comments into the story, such as:

• Awesome! Keeping the dream alive, a mansion on the coast…
• This is the “we have no plan going forward” routine, also known as “we are waiting for something magical to happen and money to fall into our laps!!”
• Awesome, they switched from a gas guzzling corvette to a.. gas guzzling huge ass SUV!
• know!! Lets get a job selling houses.. that don’t sell in a market that is thrashing around and wallowing in its death throes! Awesome decision there Kent...just think how many sea shell necklaces and self designed bikini’s you need to sell to make that 10k minimum a month.

Ah, Stu - you are too good with words!

Here are some nuggets from 3D Commune:

• Notice they cashed in HER 401k? He is going to skip off to Mexico with his secretary and intact 401k
• A suburban - now THERE is an economy vehicle
• THE INDUSTRY TARNISHED ITSELF, and you were part of it, I guess its time to get out the silver polish baby!
• Yeah, let the government pay you to do nothing, its the American way

Free Republic has great comments as well. A sampling:

• Sorry, they made a heck of a lot of money, and don’t have anything saved? Stupid is as stupid does.
• So, he gave birth to the monster that ate him.He and his ilk built the castle of sand and now bitch that it's crumbling?
• (They) need to sell the Beemer, down-size the house, take the first job they can get and begin working their way up again. And quit whining.
• (She's) been without work since May of 2007???!!! Nobody wants her resume because it’s got subprime on it? Nobody? Not Target or the Food Lion? Gimme a break. The woman could be bringing in something and still run her jewelry and beachwear business.
• But surely you don’t expect them to take responsibility for their own actions??

And, my personal favorite:

(Executives) in the Sub Prime and other banking fields by extension, really have no marketable skills and are grossly overpaid.

Finally, let's not forget Frugal Jim, who questions whether they should even be allowed to collect unemployment:

• So you and I are paying unemployment for these people? We’re actually subsidizing the start up of two businesses? I always though unemployment was supposed to be for people who were actively seeking a job, but were unable to do so.

FNLC Alum On CNNMoney.com

Careers vanish after subprime 'free fall'

Kent and Mysti Cope were well-paid executives at subprime lenders who never thought the industry could disappear overnight. Now they're just trying to get by.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (CNNMoney.com) -- Kent and Mysti Cope met and fell in love working for one of the nation's top subprime lenders. Now, their life has been turned upside down after the sudden implosion of the subprime mortgage industry.

Mysti was one of the last people out the door at New Century Financial, once the nation's No. 2 subprime lender. She had been in charge of e-commerce customer service with dozens of employees reporting to her. It was at New Century where the Copes met in 2000.

Kent worked for several of the firms that helped give birth to the industry, which specializes in making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit, in the 1990s. He has been out of work since August when he was laid off by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group (FBR) unit First NLC Financial Services.

"We're still both in shock that it could go from something so good to so bad so quick," said Kent, 59. "New Century in 60 days went from top of the heap to out of business."
The two didn't say exactly how much money they made at their last jobs but Kent admitted they each had six-figure incomes.

Today, they're trying to get by on his unemployment benefits of about $450 a week, which covers only about an eighth of the basic payments they owe every month.

Full article:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/31/news/economy/copes/index.htm?postversion=2008033105

The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nothing But The Truth

Long time, no posts - I guess that's what happens when the entity you are writing about no longer exists!

Reader "Mr. Miracle" pasted this article from the March 14 Washington Post while commenting on a previous post - thought I'd share it with you. No wonder FBR liked Daddy and Junior's way of doing business...

FBR's Awful Truth

By Steven Pearlstein

There was a time when lots of us were rooting for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, the homegrown investment bank. With its strong bench of analysts, its focus on financial services and technology, its scrappy trading desk and a loyal network of institutional investors eager to buy up whatever it was selling, FBR was the Washington upstart determined to beat Wall Street at its own game.

But in the decade since it began selling its shares to the public, FBR seems to have careened from one disaster to another, losing billions of dollars for its customers and investors and constantly restructuring itself to give the illusion of reinvention. One of the founders was forced to resign from the firm after a federal investigation into whether the company had given inside information about one of its customers to another. Its own stock is so beaten down -- from a high $28 four years ago to yesterday's close of $1.93 -- that investors are pricing it at less than the company's book value.

Sad as it is to say, I'm coming to the conclusion that FBR has come to represent everything that's bad about Wall Street, quick to jump on every fad, substitute hype for solid research and earn big fees for peddling junk.

Let us recall, for example, that FBR was an active financier and cheerleader for the tech and telecom boom of the late '90s, putting its customers' money and prestige behind dozens of flameouts that included LifeMinders, WebMethods and Varsity Books.

In between bubbles, it took the lead in funding a Bermuda reinsurance company that entered the market just in time to get buried under two of the worst hurricanes in history.
FBR became an underwriter for the residential real estate bubble, helping to finance New Century Financial, Luminent Mortgage Capital, Thornburg Mortgage and American Home Mortgage.

In 2005, FBR decided to jump into the subprime pool with both feet, paying more than $100 million to acquire originator First NLC and losing hundreds of millions of dollars more before taking the firm into bankruptcy earlier this year.

A financial whiz I know compiled for me a list of all the stock offerings FBR underwrote between 2001 and 2007, both public IPOs as well as the private placements in which FBR specialized. He found that if you'd invested in all of them on the day they started trading, you'd be down now by about 20 percent. That compares with a gain of 20 percent on the Standard and Poor's 500-stock index, or a loss of 9 percent on the S&P Financial index.

Of course, investment banking is only part of FBR's business -- and at this point, the only profitable part, although even that is now questionable, given the market turmoil and the dramatic slowdown in new issues. But it's worth noting that in the past two years, when other financial firms were posting record profits from proprietary trading (buying and selling securities with the firm's own money) and asset management (collecting fees for running hedge funds and mutual funds), FBR managed to lose money in both areas.

Not that it would have been easy for an investor -- or a business journalist -- to come up with a clear picture of what was going on at FBR. No sooner would something go wrong than a press release would appear announcing some new strategy or structure or the shift of assets from one pocket to another. One day FBR is an investment bank, the next a tax-free real estate investment trust with a taxable investment bank subsidiary. Then, when the REIT starts to crash, it spins off the investment bank as a separate entity, selling part to a private-equity firm and then, a few months later, another part to the public. This is the kind of hocus-pocus that financial sharpies engage in when they can't succeed by delivering good value to customers and investors. With FBR, it's a case of being too clever by half.

What's most galling, however, is how well FBR's top executives have done for themselves despite all the misjudgments and setbacks. One founder, Russ Ramsey, was clever enough to cash out and leave shortly after the initial public offering. And before the recent troubles, Manny Friedman and Eric Billings made themselves two of the highest-paid executives in the region, with annual compensation packages approaching $10 million each.

But for pure chutzpah, nothing tops the recent announcement that, following a year in which the company posted an operating loss of $740 million, Billings and three other top executives were awarded bonuses and stock grants worth $30 million, at the time equal to nearly 9 percent of FBR's market value. The rationale given by FBR's compensation committee is a model of twisted logic that now infects the minds of corporate directors. It noted that these executives had gone years -- yes, two entire years! -- without a bonus because of the company's poor performance due to a subprime mortgage crisis that was outside their control. And it lauded them for their great success in selling off the subprime assets for which they grossly overpaid, and for raising $220 million through the IPO of the investment banking subsidiary to investors who, in the space of eight months, have seen the value of their shares fall by two-thirds.

One can only imagine what bonuses the FBR directors would have lavished on Billings and his associates if they had sold stock that had actually increased in value.

But equally absurd was the rationale for granting Billings $2 million and an additional 3.5 million shares of FBR stock as a retention award, so he won't go leave the company over the next three years. This is the founder of the firm with his name on the door, who, with 6 percent of the common stock, is already the firm's largest individual shareholder. By his own admission, he bet the firm on residential real estate and subprime mortgages -- and lost. So where else is he going to go? Does anyone really believe that recruiters from Goldman Sachs are banging on his door?
Of course, the better question is why, rather than picking the pockets of beleaguered shareholders to pay big retention bonuses, FBR's directors haven't sent Billings packing. After all, that's what happened at Citigroup, Merrill, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns in the wake of similar misjudgments. At FBR, by contrast, not a single top executive has lost his job as a result of the mortgage debacle.