{"id":1338,"date":"2007-12-10T16:48:08","date_gmt":"2007-12-10T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/"},"modified":"2008-01-30T10:05:17","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T18:05:17","slug":"wamu-ouch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/","title":{"rendered":"WaMu: Ouch."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the mortgage market experiences continuing turmoil, <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/businesstechnology\/2004063925_webwamu.html\" title=\"WaMu laying off 3,150; closing home loan stores\">our local giant in the industry is not spared<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The nationwide housing slump and collapsed mortgage markets have taken yet another toll on Washington Mutual \u2014 specifically, on its employees and shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>The Seattle-based thrift, one of the nation&#8217;s largest home lenders, said Monday it will:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cut 3,150 jobs, mostly in its struggling home loans business;<\/li>\n<li>Shutter nearly two-thirds of its home-loan stores;<\/li>\n<li>Close its 5-year-old mortgage-backed securities brokerage;<\/li>\n<li>Slash its quarterly dividend to 15 cents per share, from 56 cents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The company also said it would sell $2.5 billion worth of convertible preferred stock. That, along with the dividend cut and the other closures and reductions, should give WaMu $3.7 billion more in capital to work with as it tries to ride out the nation&#8217;s worst financial crisis since the savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and early 1990s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Don&#8217;t think that if the economy as a whole takes a downturn that our giants in <em>other<\/em> industries will somehow be spared, either.  But hey, Seattle is Special and all real estate is local, right?<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Drew DeSilver &amp; Melissa Allison, <a href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/businesstechnology\/2004063925_webwamu.html\" title=\"WaMu laying off 3,150; closing home loan stores\">Seattle Times<\/a>, 12.10.2007<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the mortgage market experiences continuing turmoil, our local giant in the industry is not spared: The nationwide housing slump and collapsed mortgage markets have taken yet another toll on Washington Mutual \u2014 specifically, on its employees and shareholders. The Seattle-based thrift, one of the nation&#8217;s largest home lenders, said Monday it will: Cut 3,150&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[198],"tags":[111],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-wamu"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WaMu: Ouch. \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"WaMu: Ouch. \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"As the mortgage market experiences continuing turmoil, our local giant in the industry is not spared: The nationwide housing slump and collapsed mortgage markets have taken yet another toll on Washington Mutual \u2014 specifically, on its employees and shareholders. The Seattle-based thrift, one of the nation&#8217;s largest home lenders, said Monday it will: Cut 3,150...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@The_Tim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SeattleBubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Tim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/\",\"name\":\"WaMu: Ouch. \u2022 Seattle Bubble\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-12-10T23:48:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-01-30T18:05:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7de7c0dd14bee1a2c67f7ce86bc4505f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/10\/wamu-ouch\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"WaMu: Ouch.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Seattle Bubble\",\"description\":\"local\u00a0real\u00a0estate\u00a0news, statistics,\u00a0and\u00a0commentary without\u00a0the\u00a0sales\u00a0spin.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7de7c0dd14bee1a2c67f7ce86bc4505f\",\"name\":\"The Tim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/37756956c11dcc50d2559761ffa5ee70\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19e5770990a1681615608091b2de571b10c3e03bbac7d07bb2ae15297ee72fbc?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19e5770990a1681615608091b2de571b10c3e03bbac7d07bb2ae15297ee72fbc?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Tim\"},\"description\":\"Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. 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