Morgan Stanley Plans to Turn Downgraded Loan CDO Into AAA Bonds

by divorced one like Bush

Well, well, well, seems our Robert will have some more thinking to do. Via C & L to Radamisto who want’s to know if we have ADD or what comes the Bloomberg story that the money from money machine is being restarted.

Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.

Morgan Stanley is selling $87.1 million of securities that it expects to receive top AAA ratings and $42.9 million of notes graded Baa2, the second-lowest investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, according to marketing documents obtained by Bloomberg News. The bonds were created from Greywolf CLO I Ltd., a CDO arranged in January 2007 by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and managed by Greywolf Capital Management LP, an investment firm based in Purchase, New York.

Gee, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs? Two totally separate companies, just happen to be mentioned together implimenting the same strategic plans.

8/18/08 Morgan Stanley, Goldman link lending to their own creditworthiness

The Financial Times is reporting that Morgan Stanley is implementing systems that tie the prices of credit insurance on their own debt to their commitment to provide financing to their hedge fund clients. The shift would allow the bank to pull out from its funding commitments should it run into a crisis of confidence like that which wiped out Bear Stearns in only a matter of days. Goldman uses a similar arrangement that ties its lending commitments to the firm’s own bond prices.

9/21/08
WASHINGTON (Associated Press)

The Federal Reserve said Sunday it had granted a request by the country’s last two major investment banks – Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – to change their status to bank holding companies.
The decision means that the Goldman and Morgan Stanley will be able not only to set up commercial bank subsidiaries to take deposits, giving them a major resource base, but they will also have the same access as other commercial banks to the Fed’s emergency loan program.

3/9/09 UPDATE 2-Barclays cuts price targets on Goldman, Morgan Stanley

March 9 (Reuters) – Barclays Capital cut its price targets on Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and said it expects the former investment-banking giants to post losses for December, mostly due to asset markdowns, investment losses and “very subdued” core earnings.

5/19/09
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have formally asked the Federal Reserve for permission to repay a combined $20 billion in federal bailout money.

6/17/09 JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley cut ties with government

In separate statements, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase said they will not issue bonds backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The banks are striving to show they can raise funds without help from the government. Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions might follow suit.

Continuing the July 8, 2009 Bloomberg article:

A lot of banks and insurers “cannot buy anything but AAA,” said Sylvain Raynes, a principal at R&R Consulting in New York and co-author of “Elements of Structured Finance,” which is due to be published in November by Oxford University Press. “You’re manufacturing AAA out of not AAA, therefore allowing those people who have AAA written on their forehead to buy.”

While the Morgan Stanley deal is the first to involve CDOs of loans, banks have been doing the same with commercial mortgage-backed securities in recent weeks.

Jennifer Sala, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, and Gregory Mount, a Greywolf partner, declined to comment.

Banks are using re-REMICs to protect against losses on residential-mortgage securities during the worst housing slump since the Great Depression…Re-REMIC stands for “resecuritizations of real estate mortgage investment conduits,” the formal name of mortgage bonds.

Nice to know We the People have their backs huh?