Foreclosure relief: $1 million apiece
ABOVE: Webster Bank executives help themselves to $400 million from the Kash’n’Kari Capital Purchase Program.
Connecticut is hardly unique in being littered with small-cap banks that have variously avoided the worst of the financial sector rout, lied more skillfully about their exposures, or — more likely, in the Nutmeg State — have the Mozilo paradigm in their future as formerly ‘prime’ borrowers now temporarily employed in the New York-Fairfield County financial axis start Googling ‘state unemployment offices.’
So Webster Bank (WBS) caught lots of local ink Friday for its Nov. 13 announcement of “a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures for Webster-owned mortgages and the expansion of mortgage assistance programs aimed at keeping families in their homes.”
Michael Sheahan, senior vice president in charge of mortgage lending for Webster, said there are approximately 400 mortgages — worth $40 million to $60 million — that could qualify for the moratorium. “Roughly one-third or less are in some form of foreclosure,” he said.
Very kind. But for the fact that Webster has been allowed to heist $400 million from Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program for, among other things, pursuing “opportunities for growth, including acquisition of like-minded partners that share Webster’s vision to be New England’s bank.”
Nice work, if you can get it. Whicy you can, while paying out that spivvy divvy.
by Angela Carter
The New Haven Register Nov. 14 2008
Webster Financial Corp. press release Nov 13. 2008
Webster Financial Corp. press release Nov 7 2008
Comments