Conseco Pushing Loan Extensions to Aid Its Numbers, Source Says By Peter Eavis Senior Columnist 6/22/01 2:47 PM ET

Conseco (CNC:NYSE - news - commentary) is continuing to press its loan collectors to grant more loan extensions in a bid to hold down the number of past-due mobile home loans, according to a collections representative at Conseco's large call center in Tempe, Ariz.

Conseco didn't immediately comment.

Detox took a detailed look at efforts to reduce bad loan numbers in May.

Conseco's stock plunged nearly 9% Friday morning but recovered to trade down 27 cents, or 1.9%, at $14.04. It's down 30% from its 52-week high. One reason for the drop is fears that credit quality at Conseco Finance, Conseco's lending arm, has deteriorated sharply this quarter, a subject this column has also examined recently.

The collector, who requested anonymity, says managers have been pressing staff to increase the amount of mobile home loan extensions they are doing. Conseco has over $26 billion of mobile home loans and is the nation's largest lender in this field.

An extension entails taking past-due payments and adding them to the end of the loan. This immediately renders the loan current and allows it to be subtracted from the past-due, or delinquency, total. The problem is that the borrowers who get extensions often don't stay current for long. The collector says that the Tempe center failed to meet its delinquency targets for April and May and looks like it's also going to miss June's target.

"Last week, the managers told us that each person had to do six extensions a day till the end of the month," the collector said, speaking Friday.

This person adds that managers have introduced some new twists to their extension policies. Managers have told collectors to be especially lenient in granting extensions to borrowers living in preowned homes, the collector claims. As Detox has written, the borrowers who live in repossessed houses or houses transferred from other borrowers typically have lower creditworthiness.

The collector also says managers have started something called "re-age extensions." According to this person, these focus on borrowers who are more than 90 days past due and close to having their homes repossessed. "They give us a list and we have to go and give these people extensions," the collector says. "There's no doubt in my mind that they are going to come right back into our delinquency numbers."

Because many collectors don't believe granting extensions improves credit quality in the long run, morale is sinking and many collectors have left the Tempe center, this person says.

Conseco mobile home loans more than 60 days past due jumped to an estimated 2.1% of loans in May, using data filed by Conseco to holders of its loan-backed bonds. That's well above the company's target of 1.71% for the end of the second quarter.

In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, Peter Eavis doesn't own or short individual stocks. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships.

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