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November 22, 2004
BluePoint Re, a New Financial Guaranty Reinsurance Company, Formed by Wachovia
CHARLOTTE, NC - Wachovia Corporation today announced the formation and funding of a new financial guaranty reinsurance company, BluePoint Re Limited, which has been rated Aa3/AA by Moody's Investor Service and Standard & Poor's, respectively.
BluePoint Re, based in Bermuda, is a financial guaranty reinsurer serving the primary financial guaranty companies and reinsuring investment grade structured finance and municipal transactions, said Tom Wickwire, managing director and head of the Structured Products Division of Wachovia Securities.
"We are looking forward to strengthening our partnership with the monoline financial guaranty companies and view this platform as an extension of the core credit, structuring and securitization skills that are resident within Wachovia."
Recent growth in Wachovia's Structured Products platform has made the financial guaranty sector an increasingly strategic part of the business. Wachovia has many of these transactions insured, or "wrapped," on behalf of issuers or for its own balance sheet. Through BluePoint, Wachovia can now provide additional financial guaranty capacity to its clients and strengthen its ties to the primary insurers.
Wachovia capitalized BluePoint Re with $300 million and will not pay a dividend from any retained earnings or capital from BluePoint Re for at least five years from the start of the company.
An experienced financial guaranty and capital markets team, led by John McEvoy, CEO, and Dan Farrell, president, will manage BluePoint. McEvoy was most recently founder and CEO of Creditex, Inc, a credit derivative trading platform sponsored, in part, by several financial guaranty companies. Before that, McEvoy was a credit and fixed-income derivative specialist at Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust. Farrell was director and member of the management and operating committees of FSA, Inc., and ran its U.S. asset-backed business.
About Wachovia Corporation
Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB) is one of the largest providers of financial services to retail, brokerage and corporate customers, with retail operations from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas, and retail brokerage operations nationwide. Its four core businesses, the General Bank, Capital Management, Wealth Management, and the Corporate and Investment Bank, serve approximately 14 million client relationships (including households and businesses), primarily in 15 states and Washington, D.C. Its full-service retail brokerage firm, Wachovia Securities, LLC, serves clients in 49 states and Washington, D.C. Global services are offered through 33 international offices. Online banking and brokerage products and services also are available through wachovia.com.
Wachovia had assets of $436.7 billion, stockholders' equity of $33.9 billion and market capitalization of $61.4 billion at Sept. 30, 2004. SouthTrust had assets of $53.8 billion and stockholders' equity of $4.7 billion at Sept. 30, 2004.
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