Thornburg Mortgage Inc. said Friday that it had resolved a dispute with warehouse lenders that had forced the jumbo loan specialist to miss a debt payment last month.
In March, Thornburg was able to avert bankruptcy when the five lenders — Bear Stearns Cos., Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, and UBS AG — agreed to suspend margin calls.
But the lenders made another round of margin calls four months later, after Fitch Inc. downgraded more than $1 billion of mortgage-backed securities in Thornburg's portfolio.
The company disputed the amount the lenders demanded under the terms of their agreement.
As the parties haggled over their conflicting interpretations of the agreement, the lenders began to withhold funds payable to Thornburg. For this reason, Thornburg said last month, it lacked the funds to make a $12.2 million interest payment that was due on $305 million of bonds.
On Friday, Thornburg said the lenders had agreed not to "invoke any margin calls against the company under any financing agreement to which they are a party" through mid-March.
In return, the company said it agreed to pay the lenders $68.8 million out of a reserve fund, among other things. That left $41.2 million in the fund to cover the overdue bond payment (which Thornburg made Friday) and "forecasted operating expenses and debt service payments through March."
Larry Goldstone, Thornburg's president and chief executive officer, said in a press release that it "will now be able to focus our complete attention on finding alternative financing solutions for our existing mortgage backed securities portfolio and on our loan origination business."
