Execs Cashed Out as Subprime Giant Staggered

Reed Hastings pays for battered share price

(NEWSER) - Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is paying the price for the price hike / Qwikster debacle that has sent the company’s share price down 75% since July. Hastings' annual stock option allowance will be cut by 50%, bringing it to $1.5 million, the company revealed in a regulatory filing yesterday. He'll still take home a $500,000 salary in 2012. Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Kilgore, meanwhile, will take a salary cut from $802,000 down to $575,000, though her option allowance will increase from $1.1 million to $1.3 million, Bloomberg reports. More»

Countrywide, WaMu got $35M as they upped risky loans

(NEWSER) - Rick Perry handed mortgage lenders millions to draw them to Texas—right when their risky lending practices surged. The governor gave Countrywide $20 million and Washington Mutual $15 million in what he called an exemplary job-creation move; in effect, that $35 million subsidized dangerous subprime lending, an AP analysis of data and records finds. And when some began to fear the impending mortgage crisis, Perry's rep shrugged off their concerns as “slightly alarmist.” More»

Bank accused of mortgage abuses

(NEWSER) - Wells Fargo has agreed to cough up $85 million to settle allegations that it steered borrowers with good credit towards expensive subprime mortgages and falsified information on borrowers' income on loan documents. The Federal Reserve says the fine, the first levied in relation to the predatory big-bank practices blamed for the housing bubble, is the largest that it has ever issued under its consumer-protection authority, CNN reports. More»

Alleged inside-trader accused of conspiracy, securities fraud

(NEWSER) - Raj Rajaratnam was charged with five counts of conspiracy and six counts of securities fraud today, the first criminal charges related to allegations of insider trading at his Galleon group hedge fund. Danielle Chiesi, who prosecutors say was one of Rajaratnam's illicit collaborators, was hit with three counts of conspiracy and seven counts of securities fraud, reports the Wall Street Journal . More»

(NEWSER) - The market for subprime mortgages may have dried up, but former salesmen have found a new calling: as loan modification advisers who help clients refinance the high-risk loans they used to sell, reports the New York Times. For a fee of around $3,500—the bulk paid upfront—former subprime marketers now offer to negotiate lower payments for the now-delinquent homeowners who snapped them up. More»