The latest disastrous turn in Bank of America’s acquisition of Countrywide Financial has the nation’s second largest lender paying a record $335 million penalty for Countrywide charging more to lenders of certain races and origins.

The settlement is more than 10 times the total amount the U.S. Department of Justice has collected for all previous fair-lending settlements, according to Bloomberg News. Individual borrowers could collect more than $1,000 from the settlement, depending on the form of the loan. [more]

Insurance giant Manulife Financial, the Toronto-based parent of John Hancock Financial, said today that it bought 10 Exchange Place, a 30-story trophy office tower in Jersey City, for $285 million, marking the company’s first major acquisition in the New York City market.

Manulife, the largest insurance firm in Canada, outbid a number of rival firms for the 748,000-square-foot building, located on the Hudson River waterfront and home to tenants including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Ace Insurance.

Atlanta-based Invesco sold the property after placing the building up for sale through a bidding process that started earlier this year, however Manulife’s managed to top all rival offers in the first round, eventually settling on a price of $381 a square foot. [more]

Lehman Brothers Holdings matched Equity Residential’s $1.33 billion bid for a 26.5 percent stake in Archstone, and then sued partners Bank of America and Barclays for breaching Lehman’s right of first refusal for the stake in a sale, Bloomberg News reported.

Archstone is a real estate investment trust with stakes in 60,000 U.S. apartment units and 14,000 units in Germany, that Lehman purchased in October 2007 with Tishman Speyer for $22 billion. Lehmar eventually filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and refinanced the portfolio and brought in equity partners Barclays and BofA, which combined for a 53 percent stake. [more]

Sam Zell and an Archstone building at 800 Sixth Avenue

Sam Zell’s Equity Residential has emerged as the leading bidder in a race to buy 53 percent of rival Archstone, offering more than $2.5 billion in cash for the stake, currently held by Bank of America and Barclays, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rest of the company, a real estate investment trust, is owned by the bankruptcy estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings.

The proposed sale to Equity Residential would value Archstone at about $16 billion, the Journal said. If sold as a whole company, Archstone currently could be worth as much as $18 billion.

Real estate giants the Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities have all submitted bids for Archstone in recent months, it was previously reported. [more]

The price lenders must pay to move past the federal investigation into their foreclosure practices went up by $5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. And it could rise higher.

The ongoing negotiations between government officials and banks, which appeared close to being finalized in September at a cost of $20 billion to the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers, have centered on a new number: $25 billion. The final cost could eventually reach $29 billion.

The lenders in question are Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo [more]

Brookfield Office Properties CEO Ric Clark and 4 World Financial CenterBrookfield Office Properties has struck a deal with Bank of America to take its 49 percent stake in 4 World Financial Center and will own the entire property, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of America simultaneously renewed its lease for 750,000 square feet in the tower.

The largest landlord in the neighborhood, Brookfield has committed to Lower Manhattan with this deal and its recent promise to spend $250 million to upgrade the retail at the World Financial Center. However, with layoffs looming at financial firms and millions of vacant square feet being delivered in the World Trade Center, Brookfield has reason to be concerned. [more]

Bank of America should face fraud claims because its Countrywide unit submitted faulty data in claims for reimbursement of federally insured mortgages, according to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bloomberg News reported.

“Countrywide did not properly verify, analyze, or support borrowers’ employment and income, source of funds to close, liabilities and credit information,” a HUD regional inspector general wrote in the audit. “This noncompliance occurred because Countrywide’s underwriters did not exercise due diligence in underwriting the loans.” HUD runs the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages on loans to borrowers who can’t find traditional financing, such as those with low income.  Comments

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William Rudin and the St. Vincent’s Hospital siteThe Rudin family’s $800 million redevelopment of the St. Vincent’s Hospital site is one step closer to a reality. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudin Management obtained $525 million in construction financing and can begin construction once the government approval process, already underway, is complete.

The relative ease with which the Rudin’s cleared the financing obstacle given today’s tight lending environment was surprising, the Journal said. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and M&T Bank contributed to the loan.

But that last hurdle, government approval, could be the highest. [more]

Attorney General Eric SchneidermanFrom the September issue: When New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman took office earlier this year, some critics feared he would do more ideological grandstanding than consumer protection and reform.
After eight months on the job, the former Democratic state senator (and ex-deputy sheriff) appears to be winning over some skeptics while enraging others.
The relatively low-profile Schneiderman exploded into the national spotlight last month when he filed a last-minute motion to block a proposed $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America and investors in 530 New York trusts represented by Bank of New York Mellon.
The blockbuster move alleged that Bank of New York effectively tried to carve out a sweetheart deal for itself at the expense of the investors it was supposed to be representing. [more]

Ordinary victims of the mortgage crisis say that the big banks which
received large financial bailouts under the Bush and Obama
administrations are not doing enough to help them, even as the companies are recording
significant profits, the New York Times reported, with government
officials divided on taking a harder line. Mimi Pierre Johnson, a
real estate agent, and her husband, a construction worker, had bought a
four-bedroom home in Elmont, on Long Island, for $413,000 in 2005. But
when the recession took hold, her husband lost his construction job,
her real estate business dropped off and they began having trouble making their
mortgage payments. Her bank, JPMorgan Chase, gave her a temporary loan modification, but then canceled it. “I’m a
realtor; I know I’m doomed,” Johnson said. “But I want to say to
Chase, ‘Hello!? The government gave you a bailout to help people like
me.’” [more]