Colony, Invitation Homes, American Homes 4 Rent, Starwood Waypoint join forces

The National Rental Home Council is a new trade group created by major owner-operators in the single-family rental home industry, focusing on increasing education about the professionally managed single-family rental industry.

the REO-to-Rental secularization marketplace is nearing $920 billion in potential opportunities.

In the 21st century, the security of nations will increasingly depend on the security of natural resources, or “natural security.” The modern global economy depends on access to energy, minerals, potable water, and arable land to meet the rising expectations of a growing world population, and that access is by no means assured. At the same time, increasing consumption of these resources has consequences, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, which will challenge the security of the United States and nations all over the world.
Natural security ultimately means sufficient, reliable, affordable, and sustainable supplies of natural resources for the modern global economy. This will require the United States to both shape and respond to emerging natural resources challenges in a changing strategic environment.

In the early hours of yesterday morning European Union politicians struck a deal on legislation to create a single agency to handle failing banks and bail-ins in the Eurozone after another all night negotiating marathon ahead of a summit of EU leaders starting in Brussels today.

Negotiators persuaded nations that had been opposed to the proposed Single Resolution Mechanism and the legislation for bail-ins to agree.

Insolvent banks will be treated equally regardless of the country they are based in. Failed banks creditors, both bond holders and depositors, will be subject to bail-ins in the same way in all countries.

“It’s a very good agreement,” European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said before the meeting of EU leaders in the Belgian capital. The banking union was shaped in part by Draghi and he hailed the compromise plan as “great progress for a better banking union. Two pillars are now in place."

Today is my last day at Rolling Stone.
As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.

Wells Fargo, the nation’s biggest mortgage servicer, appears to have set up detailed internal procedures to fabricate foreclosure papers on demand, according to allegations in papers filed Tuesday in a New York federal court.

In a filing in New York’s Southern District in White Plains for a local homeowner in bankruptcy, attorney Linda Tirelli described a 150-page Wells Fargo Foreclosure Attorney Procedures Manual created November 9, 2011 and updated February 24, 2012. According to court papers, the Manual details “a procedure for processing [mortgage] notes without endorsements and obtaining endorsements and allonges.”

Attorneys, forensic accountants and consumer advocates have long suspected that banks were systematically creating improper documents to prove ownership of loans. Foreclosure defense lawyers use the term ‘ta-da’ endorsement to describe situations in which they say a document appears, as if by magic, in the bank’s possession as needed in a foreclosure case—even though the proper endorsement was not included in the original foreclosure filing. It might sound like a technicality, but correct proof of ownership lies at the heart of the foreclosure crisis for securitized loans, which were sold by the lender that originally issued the mortgage. To legally transfer a securitized loan, the endorsements and allonges have to be created in a very specific way and within a specific time frame, usually 90 days after a residential mortgage trust closes. For many loans in foreclosure now, which were originated years ago and then sold, it’s way too late to correct incomplete documents, experts said.

NEW YORK, March 10, Mar 10, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Pomerantz LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against Walter Investment Management Corporation ("Walter Investment" or the "Company&quot WAC -2.04% and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, and docketed under 1:14-cv-20880, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Walter Investment securities between May 9, 2012 and February 26, 2014, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period&quot . This class action seeks to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws pursuant to Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Walter Investment securities during the Class Period, you have until May 6, 2014 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com . To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, x237. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

Walter Investment is a loan servicer and business solutions provider focused on generating recurring, fee-based revenues from an "asset-light" platform.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that:
(1) the Company lacked adequate internal controls over financial accounting and compliance with applicable laws; (2) the Company's internal controls were not effective;
(3) the Company's financial statements contained false and misleading statements;
(4) the Company had failed to disclose material weaknesses in the internal controls of its recently acquired subsidiary, RMS;
(5) the Company had overstated the value of its RMS acquisition;
(6) the Company was in violation of applicable laws, rules and regulations;
(7) the Company's business practices violated consumer financial protection laws, thereby jeopardizing future revenues and profits; and,
(8) as a result of the foregoing, the Company's statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 18, 2013, the Company shocked investors by disclosing that, based on an evaluation by the Company's Board of Directors and management, "our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer, has identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. As a result of this material weakness, management has concluded that, as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K, our internal control over financial reporting was not effective."

On this news, the Company's shares fell $8.61 per share to close on March 19, 2013 at $32.98 per share, a drop of over 20%.

On February 27, 2014, the Company announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC&quot Form 8-K filing that the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC&quot issued a Civil Investigation Demand ("CID&quot to Green Tree Servicing LLC ("Green Tree&quot , a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, requesting information on a broad range of subjects relating to the company's operations.

On this news, shares of Walter Investment fell from $28.28 to $25.90, more than 8%, on unusually heavy trading volume, on February 27, 2014.

With nearly every other main street named after a Russian military hero or a gruesome battle, its lovely seafront promenade dominated by a “monument to sunken ships” and its central square named after the imperial admiral who commanded Russian forces against French, British and Turkish troops in the 19th century, Sevastopol constantly feeds thoughts of war and its agonies.
Bombarded with reminders of the Crimean War, which involved a near yearlong siege of the city in 1854-55, and World War II, when the city doggedly resisted Nazi forces until finally falling in July 1942, Sevastopol has never stopped thinking about wartime losses — and has never been able to cope with the amputation carried out in 1954 by the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev.
Khrushchev ordered Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the time, the operation caused little pain, as both Russia and Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union, which chloroformed ethnic, linguistic and cultural divisions with repression.

When Ukraine became a separate independent nation near the end of 1991, however, Sevastopol — the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the 18th century — began howling, culminating in the Crimean Parliament’s decision on Thursday to hold a referendum on March 16 on whether to break away from Ukraine and formally become part of Russia again. Jubilant residents gathered in Sevastopol.

“We’re returning home,” said one of them, Victoria Krupko. “We’ve waited a long time for this.”