Thornburg Posts Jumbo Loss

Thornburg Mortgage(TMA Quote) swung to a monstrous loss of $3.31 billion for the first quarter on the plummeting value of securities tied to home loans and said it expected delinquencies to continue to rise.

The Santa Fe, N.M.-based jumbo loan specialist reported a net loss before paying preferred stock dividends of $20.64 per common share, vs. last year's net income of 62 cents per share. The decline in fair market value of the company's mortgage-backed securities and securitized loan portfolios contributed $1.5 billion to the loss.

A balance sheet and income statement were not included with the quarter's figures, though the CEO and President Larry Goldstone said he expected to file a 10Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission next week. He maintained that most of the negativity of the announcement was due to accounting rules.

"A number of factors that were non-recurring and accounting driven led to the losses," Goldstone said on a conference call. He noted that the recent senior subordinated note transaction was barely in the market before they had to give it a fair market value, which turned out to be $950 million less than the proceeds received.

Goldstone, however, tried to remain upbeat. He noted that even though delinquencies were likely to continue to increase over the balance of the year, "the credit quality of our originated and acquired loan portfolio continues to perform extremely well, and their performance is consistent with our current estimates."

One year ago, this stock traded at $27. The stock was selling at roughly 71 cents in recent mixed trading Thursday.