Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group (FBR Group) said that various articles have been published recently regarding the attempt by FBR Group to have an agency mortgage security with a face amount of $250 million returned to it under a repurchase agreement with Lehman Brothers.
The lawsuit was brought by FBR Group, a publicly traded REIT and not by FBR Capital Markets Corp., an investment bank which is a publicly traded company separate and apart from FBR Group.
The lawsuit and the request for return of the security is part of FBR Group's normal, ongoing management of its assets and capital and was necessitated by an inability to secure satisfactory responses from the various parties associated with the liquidation proceedings involving Lehman Brothers, FBR Group said.
FBR Group thinks it will recover the agency mortgage security, but if not, FBR Group believes that considering today's market, the potential damages it would suffer would be costs and expenses plus roughly $9 million representing the difference between the amount advanced to FBR Group under the repurchase agreement and the value of the security, and which amount FBR Group would then seek to recover from Lehman Brothers via the liquidation proceedings.
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group is the majority owner of FBR Capital Market Corp., a separate publicly traded company. FBR Group is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
