MBIA Reports $2.3 Billion Loss in Fourth Quarter

from The Wall Street Journal

Jan. 31, 2008

MBIA lost $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared with net income of $181 million a year earlier. The substantial loss amounted to $18.61 a share, compared with net income of $1.32 a share in the final quarter of 2006. The bond insurer, which released the results shortly after midnight, said writedowns in its credit-derivatives portfolio rose to $3.5 billion -- more than 10 times as large as its writedown in the third quarter, a sign of the rapidly worsening effects of the U.S. housing-market downturn.

Earlier, MBIA announced it a deal with Warburg Pincus in which the private-equity fund agreed to buy $500 million worth of the bond insurer's shares at $31 each.