In corporate finance, a debenture is a medium- to long-term debt instrument used by large companies to borrow money, at a fixed rate of interest. The legal term "debenture" originally referred to a document that either creates a debt or acknowledges it, but in some countries the term is now used interchangeably with bond, loan stock or note. A debenture is thus like a certificate of loan or a loan bond evidencing the fact that the company is liable to pay a specified amount with interest. Although the money raised by the debentures becomes a part of the company's capital structure, it does not become share capital. Senior debentures get paid before subordinate debentures, and there are varying rates of risk and payoff for these categories.
A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, ranging from office and apartment buildings to warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. Some REITs engage in financing real estate. Most countries laws on REITs entitle a real estate company to pay less in corporation tax and capital gains tax. REITs have been criticised as enabling speculation on housing, and reducing housing affordability, without increasing finance for building.
Preferred stock is a form of stock which may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock including properties of both an equity and a debt instrument, and is generally considered a hybrid instrument. Preferred stocks are senior to common stock, but subordinate to bonds in terms of claim and may have priority over common stock in the payment of dividends and upon liquidation. Terms of the preferred stock are described in the issuing company's articles of association or articles of incorporation.
GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. Through its two divisions, GE Capital Aviation Services and GE Energy Financial Services, it provides commercial lending and leasing, as well as a range of financial services for commercial aviation, energy, and support for GE's industrial business units.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, with about 25,000 employees worldwide. It was doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading, research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. Lehman was operational for 158 years from its founding in 1850 until 2008.
Bank of America Home Loans is the mortgage unit of Bank of America. In 2008, Bank of America purchased the failing Countrywide Financial for $4.1 billion. In 2006, Countrywide financed 20% of all mortgages in the United States, at a value of about 3.5% of United States GDP, a proportion greater than any other single mortgage lender.
The Ambac Financial Group, Inc., generally known as Ambac, is an American holding company. Its subsidiaries provide financial guarantee products such as bond insurance to clients in both the public and private sectors globally. Ambac Assurance is a guarantor of public finance and structured finance obligations. Its common stock and common stock purchase warrants are listed on the NYSE under the symbols AMBC and AMBCW respectively. Ambac is regulated by the insurance commission of Wisconsin. It has its headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
CIT Group Inc. (CIT) is a financial holding company and bank holding company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in New York City. CIT Bank, N.A., CIT's banking subsidiary, is headquartered in Pasadena, California. The company's name is an initialism of an early corporate name, Commercial Investment Trust.
K·B Toys was an American chain of mall-based retail toy stores. The company was founded in 1922 as Kaufman Brothers, a wholesale candy store. The company opened a wholesale toy store in 1946, and ended its candy wholesales two years later to focus entirely on the toy industry. Retail sales began in the 1970s, under the name Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American private equity firm, specializing in distressed investing. The firm is based in New York City, and run by Steve Feinberg, who co-founded Cerberus in 1992 with William L. Richter, who serves as a senior managing director. The firm has affiliate and advisory offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.
New Century Financial Corporation was a real estate investment trust that originated mortgage loans in the United States through its operating subsidiaries, New Century Mortgage Corporation and Home123 Corporation.
American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation was the 10th largest retail mortgage lender in the United States and was structured as a real estate investment trust (REIT).
Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Chinese producer of solar panels, with 2,000 MW (2,700,000 hp) of annual production capacity by the end of 2011. It is headquartered in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited, a HKSE listed renewable energy investment and Independent Power Producer company, acquired Suntech in 2014 following Suntech's bankruptcy in 2013. With offices or production facilities in every major market, Suntech has delivered more than 13,000,000 solar panels to thousands of companies in more than 80 countries around the world. As the center for the company's global operations, Suntech headquarters, in Wuxi, China, features the world's largest building integrated solar facade.
Novation Companies, Inc.(formerly Novastar Financial, Inc.) owns and operates early-stage businesses in the technology-enabled services industry. It trades under the symbol NOVC.
IndyMac, a contraction of Independent National Mortgage Corporation, was an American bank based in California that failed in 2008 and was seized by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
American Freedom Mortgage, Inc. (AFM) was a private S Corporation incorporated on February 2, 2001, according to the Georgia Secretary of State, and headquartered in Marietta, Georgia. AFM conducted business as a multi-state direct-to-consumer correspondent lender and mortgage broker specializing in the origination of subprime and Alt-A mortgage loans. AFM also operated a wholesale mortgage lending division that originated loans via approved mortgage brokers and which used the fictitious name AFMI Funding. As a correspondent lender, AFM sold the mortgage loans on the open market to larger investors.
Michael W. "Mike" Vranos is an American hedge fund manager and philanthropist who in the 1990s was referred to by some as the "most powerful man on Wall Street." In 1993, he reportedly earned $15 million from trading mortgage bonds. Fortune Magazine once called him "one of the best bond traders on Wall Street." According to a 2007 Wall Street Journal article, he has continued to be regarded as "the best-known mortgage-bond trader on Wall Street."
The filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 remains the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, with Lehman holding over US$600 billion in assets.
The government interventions during the subprime mortgage crisis were a response to the 2007–2009 subprime mortgage crisis and resulted in a variety of government bailouts that were implemented to stabilize the financial system during late 2007 and early 2008.
American Capital, Ltd. was a publicly traded private equity and global asset management firm, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol “ACAS” from 1997 to 2017 and a component of the S&P 500 Index from 2007 to 2009. American Capital was sold to Ares Management in 2017 at a sale price that totaled $4.1 billion.
