Muy buenos datos pero ninguna mencion del EC (Patetico)
By Peg Brickley
Of DOW JONES DAILY BANKRUPTCY REVIEW
http://www.djnewsplus.com/article/0,,SB126393026311514588,00.html?mod=article-outset-box
Washington Mutual Inc. (WAMUQ) says it needs more time to file a Chapter 11
plan due to continued battles with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which bought
its chief property, Washington Mutual Bank, or WaMu.
Creditors have been hoping for a quick deal to settle disputes over who gets
some $4 billion in Washington Mutual cash and who will get to collect a tax
refund that may reach $5.6 billion, thanks to WaMu's losses.
A filing Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., holds out
little hope of a speedy ending to the saga of WaMu, the mortgage-burdened
thrift at the heart of the biggest banking collapse in U.S. history.
Monday was the deadline for Washington Mutual's plan to be filed, setting out
how the bank holding company plans to distribute its assets to creditors.
Washington Mutual, however, says it can't file a plan yet because "there is
still substantial uncertainty regarding the ownership of (Washington Mutual's)
most significant assets."
Those assets include some $4 billion in cash that was in its bank accounts at
WaMu when the thrift was seized and sold, along with tax refunds that may total
as much as $5.6 billion. Washington Mutual is fighting J.P. Morgan for the
money, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. also weighing in.
WaMu's former parents has asked that the plan filing deadline be pushed to
March 26 due to the "hurdle" of continued litigation.
Unless it knows what it has to distribute, formulating a Chapter 11 plan will
be "extremely difficult, if not impossible," lawyers for Washington Mutual
wrote.
Regulators worried about the thrift's soundness seized WaMu in September 2008
and sold it to J.P. Morgan for $1.9 billion, sending parent company Washington
Mutual into bankruptcy.
Besides dealing with the cash fights, Washington Mutual is trying to question
former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and dozens of others in a
wide-ranging probe over how the WaMu deal came about. Creditors suspect J.P.
Morgan engineered WaMu's near collapse in order to acquire the thrift at "fire
sale" prices.
J.P. Morgan has declined to comment.
Judge Mary Walrath will hear debates over the probe later this month. She is
already weighing the question of who gets the $4 billion cash.
Washington Mutual says the money in the accounts belongs to it, just like the
cash of other WaMu depositors remained theirs when J.P. Morgan bought the bank.
According to J.P. Morgan, the cash should be treated like a capital
contribution from a worried parent company to an ailing subsidiary.
(Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review covers news about distressed companies and
those under bankruptcy protection.)
-By Peg Brickley, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review; 302-521-2266;
[email protected]