Home > Views > Blogs > Market Movers > MBIA Fires Back at Ackman
EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
Send a copy to me

Separate multiple email addresses (max 20) with commas.

0/1500

Main
Ben Bernanke, Optimist   How and Whether Cisco Helps Sub-Saha...
Feb 14 2008 1:26PM EST

MBIA Fires Back at Ackman

As Congress holds hearings on bond insurers, it's worth reading MBIA's official response to Bill Ackman. There's nothing in there about "the unscrupulous and dangerous market manipulation of short-sellers," as Herb Greenberg feared. Rather, it's a pretty sober analysis, which seems to have convinced Alea, at least. Here's one juicy bit:

Mr. Ackman has been consistent in his suggestion that his estimates of loss are more accurate than the company's. He alleged, in his 2002 attack on the company, that our portfolio subject to FAS 133 would have $2 -- $3 billion of losses. That portfolio, which has largely amortized or been prepaid at this time, experienced no loss. We don't believe there's any basis for giving his current estimates any more credibility than those from 6 years ago.

I don't have a dog in this race, I'm actually quite happy to watch the grenades being lobbed back and forth. But for the time being at least MBIA retains its triple-A rating and is trading at more than $12 a share, up from a low of just $6.75 (but down from a 52-week high of $72.38). I think it would be premature to count out MBIA quite yet.

See more in

Loading...

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*)
Add a comment

Recent Blog Posts

Archive

Previous
Dec
2008
Next


Also in Portfolio.com
Most Read
Most Emailed
Recently Commented