Bank of America to settle dispute with FHFA
Bank of America will spend $9.33 billion to resolve a dispute over mortgage securities with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The agency sued 18 financial institutions in 2011 over their sales of mortgage securities to Fannie and Freddie. It alleges many banks falsely represented the mortgage loans behind the securities. These soured after the housing bubble burst and lost billions in value.
Bank of America said that it will make cash payments of roughly $6.3 billion and also purchase securities from Fannie and Freddie worth more than $3 billion. It is one of several banks to settle with the FHFA, which announced the agreement Wednesday.
World Vision reverses policy
NEW YORK – Facing a firestorm of protest, the prominent Christian relief agency World Vision on Wednesday reversed a two-day-old policy change that would have allowed it to hire Christians in same-sex marriages in the U.S.
The aid group, based in Federal Way, Wash., sent a letter to supporters saying the board had made a mistake and was returning to its policy requiring celibacy outside of marriage “and faithfulness within the Bible covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.”
“We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness,” the agency said in the letter, signed by World Vision President Richard Stearns and board Chairman Jim Bere.
World Vision has an international operating budget of nearly $1 billion and conducts economic development and emergency relief projects.
Survey looks at job history
WASHINGTON – Young adults born in the early 1980s held an average of just over six jobs each from ages 18 through 26, a Labor Department survey showed Wednesday.
Since 1997, the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has been keeping tabs on about 9,000 young men and women born in the early 1980s, surveying their educational and workplace progress. The latest survey is from interviews conducted in 2011-12.
According to the survey, more than two-thirds of jobs held by high-school dropouts lasted less than a year.
Women in the study group overall were more educated than the men. Thirty-two percent of the women earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 24 percent of the males. Overall, 70 percent of the women had either some college or received a bachelor’s degree, compared to 61 percent of the men.
In the survey, young adults born from 1980 to 1984 held an average of 6.2 jobs from ages 18 to 27: 6.0 jobs for men and 6.3 for women.
King Digital stock opens low
NEW YORK – Wall Street is giving King Digital, the company behind the popular mobile game “Candy Crush Saga,” the cold shoulder in its public trading debut.
King’s stock priced at $22.50 on Tuesday, valuing the company at $7.1 billion. But it opened Wednesday at $20.50, down almost 9 percent. Its shares lost more ground by the day’s close, falling more than 15 percent.
King Digital Entertainment PLC had $1.88 billion in revenue last year. That’s more than 10 times its 2012 revenue of $164.4 million.
But some analysts have questioned whether King would be able to repeat the success of “Candy Crush,” which has been far more successful than any of its other games. Its other top games include “Pet Rescue Saga” and “Farm Heroes Saga.”