Ambac 1Q08 earnings call on Wed Mar 23

Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABK) (Ambac) announced that it will host a conference call for investors on April 23 at 11 a.m. Eastern to discuss first quarter 2008 earnings which are scheduled to be released at 6 a.m. that morning. The dial in number for the call is 877-407-0782 (U.S.) and 201-689-8567 (outside the U.S.).

Participants may submit questions in advance of the call by sending an email to 1Q2008earnings@ambac.com.


Last time Ambac had their conference call, all hell broke loose (actually it was their advanced earnings announcement but the conf call didn't exactly calm down anyone)... hopefully things will be better this time around ;)

The key things to watch:


  1. New loss reserves: I'm sure there will be some additional reserves taken for losses but as long as it is very small (I'm thinking less than $200m) it would satisfy me.
  2. HELOC and CES performance: In addition to the CDO-squareds, the other potentially lethal problem is HELOCs and CESes. The problem is that losses will likely be (close to) 100% with these exposures; in contrast, a typical RMBS and CDO likely has some positive recovery value (say 30% to 80%). The potential for massive losses for HELOCs is one reason MBIA sometimes posts worse theoretical losses than Ambac in some rating agency stress tests.
  3. New business: Market share dropped to 1% in the first quarter so that's not news but the real question is whether they were able to write any new business. Ambac was shrouded in a cloud for the first two months but I am curious to know how things looked late in March as well as early April.
  4. Foreign business: They may not break it out but I'm curious to see if there is some new business in the foreign markets.


Stay tuned for another chapter in the life of Ambac...

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