Hints and tips:
...US-based visual artists Kara Walker, Fred Wilson, Carrie Mae Weems and Njideka Akunyili Crosby are all MacArthur “Geniuses”....
...More abstract creations can be found at Tufenkian Artisan Carpets, where the “Helen Wild Berry” single-pile Himalayan wool and silk rug pays homage to the American expressionist Helen Frankenthaler....
...In St Louis Park, Minnesota, Paul and Helen Olfelt are selling a three-bedroom house they commissioned from Wright shortly before his death in 1959....
...“Both of those statements are categorically false,” Helen Kanovsky, general counsel for HUD, said in a statement....
...The US courts have taken a dim view in the past when buyers have attempted to use MAC or MAE clauses to stop deals....
...FHFA is seeking to recoup losses on mortgage securities incurred by government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac....
...Citi will provide financing for Sallie Mae’s portion of the deal, those people added, the price for which is about $1.2bn....
...Donald Judd and Isamu Noguchi both produced classics decades ago (see below), while Salvador Dalí was famously inspired by Mae West to make his lips sofa....
...Helen of Troy, which owns personal-care brands Vidal Sassoon and Revlon, posted better-than-expected quarterly results, mainly due to cost cuts. The shares rose 12.5 per cent to $22.50....
...The downgrades create a renewed headache for the GSEs, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who rely on such insurance to buy up loans....
...The group, managed by FIDAC of the US, wants to use the equity to invest further in the triple-A rated securities issued by the US GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sound familiar?...
...The market for debt issued by agencies like Fannie Mae, in which CCC invests its $21.7bn portfolio, has become “utterly unhinged” according to one strategist....
...Hence the moves to grant Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Banks a looser capital regime so they can pump liquidity into the mortgage market and the market for mortgage-backed securities....
...S&P has been making waves by arguing that the assistance offered to lubricate the sale of Bear Stearns is small beans compared to the possible need to support the GSEs, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...
...But the fund is still sticking to its original line – that its $21.7bn of investments in AAA-rated securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are good, carrying the “implicit guarantee of the US government...
...But the share price of SLM Holding, the parent of Sallie Mae, is reflecting serious doubts that the deal will make it through to conclusion....
...We also sense early signs of new demand for some credit assets, for instance from new distressed debt funds or from the Freddie Mac’s and Fannie Mae’s raised sub-prime allocations....
...This tracks homes backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so excludes many homes in high-price markets....
...Earlier this month Christopher Flowers, architect of the $25bn buy-out of Sallie Mae and putative suitor for Friends Provident, forecast that the patchy incidence of private equity deals in financial services...
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