Hayman July 07

Hayman Capital
2626 Cole Avenue, Suite 200

Dallas, TX 75204
July 30th, 2007
Dear Investors,
Over the past few months, we have seen the exacerbation of the Subprime problem
accelerate at a precipitous pace. Wait a minuteI thought the Subprime problem was
neatly contained in a nice little box of risk that the Fed had put it in? After many
meetings and conversations with the various leaders of brokerage firms and asset
managers, I dont think the Subprime problem is as contained as many would like for you
to believe. To understand the massive ripple effects of the Subprime problem, you have
to look deeply into who owns the eventual risk and furthermore, how it will affect their
behavior going forward.
The Greatest Bait and Switch of ALL TIME

I recently spent some time with a senior executive in the structured product marketing
group (Collateralized Debt Obligations, Collateralized Loan Obligations, Etc.) of one of
the largest brokerage firms in the world. I was in Roses, Spain attending a wedding for a
good friend of mine who thought it would be an appropriate time to put the two of us
together (given our shared interests in the structured credit markets). This individual
proceeded to tell me how and why the Subprime Mezzanine CDO business existed.
Subprime Mezzanine CDOs are 10-20X levered vehicles that contain only the BBB and
BBB- tranches of Subprime debt. He told me that the real money (US insurance
companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of
US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them
to mark up these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY
PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL
EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get
rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt. Interestingly enough, these buyers
(mainland Chinese Banks, the Chinese Government, Taiwanese banks, Korean banks,
German banks, French banks, UK banks) possess the excess pools of liquidity around
the globe. These pools are basically derived from two sources: 1) massive trade surpluses
with the US in USD, 2) petrodollar recyclers. These two pools of excess capital are US
dollar denominated and have had a virtually insatiable demand for US dollar
denominated debtuntil now. They have had orders on the various desks of Wall St. to
buy any US debt rated AAA by the rating agencies in the US. How do BBB and BBBtranches become AAA? Through the alchemy of Mezzanine-CDOs. With the help of the
ratings agencies the Mezzanine CDO managers collect a series of BBB and BBBtranches and repackage them with a cascading cash waterfall so that the top tiers are paid
out first on all the tranches thus allowing them to be rated AAA. Well, when you lever
ONLY mezzanine tranches of Subprime RMBS 10-20X, POOFyou magically have
80% of the structure rated AAA by the ratings agencies, despite the underlying
collateral being a collection of BBB and BBB- rated assets... This will go down as one of
the biggest financial illusions the world has EVER seen. These institutions have these
investments marked at PAR or 100 cents on the dollar for the most part. Now that the
underlying collateral has begun to be downgraded, it is only a matter of time (weeks,
days, or maybe just hours) before the ratings agencies (or what is left of them) downgrade
the actual tranches of these various CDO structures. When they are downgraded, these
foreign buyers will most likely have to sell them due to the fact that they are only
permitted to own super-senior risk in the US. I predict that these tranches of mezzanine
CDOs will fetch bids of around 10 cents on the dollar. The ensuing HORROR SHOW
will be worth the price of admission and some popcorn. Consequently, when I hear
people like Kudlow on CNBC tell their viewers that the Subprime problem is
contained, I can hardly bear to watch.
The Moral Hazard of HOT Potatoes

The key reason the Subprime problem exists as it does today has to do with the wanton
disassociation of risk inherent in the machine that churns out Subprime loans. Unlike the
S&L crisis of the 1980s, the mortgage lenders of today arent taking their own balance
sheet risk when underwriting loans. These brokers get paid for quantity REGARDLESS
of quality. The balance sheet risk is transferred through three entities in less than 90 days
from origination. The originator will originate ANYTHING he can sell to a whole loan
buyer to pass the hot potato on. Whole loan buyers are simply the aggregators of loans at
the Wall St. firms that aggregate, package, tranche, and sell as quickly as they possibly
can to the clueless buyer. This transference of risk is the crux of the Subprime situation.
Just think about itif you were a 20-something making mortgage loans in California
using someone elses balance sheet and being paid per loan (with no lookback to
performance of the loan), how many dubious loans would you underwrite?
Buyers are now BEWARE

During and after the rout these investors are about to shoulder, how excited do you think
they are going to be to purchase the next AAA rated piece of structured finance
paper?!!?!?!? These same investors and global pools of liquidity have been funding the
Leveraged Buyout (LBO) boom by purchasing the debt that funds the Collateralized
Loan Obligations (CLOs) which in turn, buy 60%+ of the LBO debt used to finance these
transactions. I also recently spent some time with one of the largest CLO issuers in the
world. They had just returned from Japan where they were marketing a new CLO in order
to be one of the buyers for new LBO debt. Needless to say, their marketing efforts fell on
deaf ears. They were told by the Japanese investors that they have lost confidence in the
ratings agencies (you think?) and that in an election year there is too much uncertainty.
They basically said, No more. If there is not a CLO bid from Asian and Central
European banks, where do you think the $290 billion in announced LBOs will go to sell
their debt? I actually have no idea how to answer that question myself. We have seen the
bank-loan index drop from 100.5 to 90.5 in 5 short weeks, and a widening in investment
grade as well as non investment grade credit. In the immediate absence of liquidity, there
will be many casualties of levered funds and firms. There will be a re-pricing of risk on
a global scale that will mean more credit funds being carried out the door feet first.
Latest Casualties
Just today, the latest firm to suffer the wrath of too much leverage and mis-priced risk
was Sowood Capital. What is truly remarkable about this particular situation is the fact
that Jeff Larson, the former manager of the $30 billion Harvard Endowment, is the
principal Manager at this firm. Sowood was renowned as being a best-in-class fund. If
the former manager of the Harvard endowment managed to lose 57% of his fund (more
than $1.7 billion in losses) in just 30 days, how are the other credit funds out there
doing? How are they calculating Value-at-Risk? This afternoon, brokerage firms were
sending collateral calls to other funds positioned similarly to Sowood. They joined the
ranks of the two Bear Stearns funds managed by Cioffi, Australias Basis Capital,
Absolute Capital, and Macquarie Fortress Funds as well investments by Koreas Woori
Bank, and Londons Caliber Fund by liquidating and eventually returning what is left to
investors. Not to mention the downfall of the poster child of the levered positive carry
industry, United Capital Markets Horizon Fund managed by John Devaney, owner of
the aptly titled 142ft yacht, the Postive Carry (which is incidentally now for sale, all
enquiries can be directed to http://www.iyc.com/featured_yachts.cfm?mn=1).
I have recently discovered the insightful writings of someone with whom I have not had
the pleasure to speak or meet in person. Howard Marks is the Chairman of Oaktree
Capital Management and he recently sent a letter to his clients entitled, Its All Good.
Mr. Marks had a most astute observation with regard to the recent investing environment:
investors recurring acceptance that its different this time or that cycles are
no more is exemplary of a willing suspension of disbelief that springs from glee
over how well things are going (on the part of people whore in the market) or
rationalization of the reasons to throw off caution and get on board (from those
who have been watching from the sidelines as prices moved higher and others
made money). In this way, the bullish swing of the investment cycle tends to
cause skepticism and risk tolerance to evaporate. Faith, credence and openmindedness all tend to move up at just the time skepticism, discrimination and
circumspection become the qualities that are most needed.
Credit Markets and Where we are today in Subprime

Last week, I spent some time in the Inland Empire of California on a diligence trip to
survey the actual damage. As many of you already know, 55% of all Subprime loans
were made in California and Florida. The inland empire of California can be described as
the central valley that extends from the southern part of the state all the way to the
northern part of the state at least 1-hour inland from the coast. Let me start by saying it is
MUCH WORSE than even I thought it could be. I met with various mortgage lenders,
originators, economists, and capital markets professionals. The overriding theme that I
got from them was that Everyone committed fraud and everyone is responsible for the
problem. They told me that they believe that 90% of all Subprime loans that were made
contained some kind of fraud. Either borrowers lied about their incomes or mortgage
brokers fudged numbers on the applications to make them pass muster with the needed
ratios in order to get loans approved. They also said that of the borrower frauds, 50% of
applicants overstated their income by MORE THAN 50%!!! As Kindleberger put so well
in his book, Manias, Panics, and Crashes:
The implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and
swindles. The supply of corruption increases in a pro-cyclical way much like the
supply of credit. Soon after a recession appears likely the loans to firms that were
fueling their growth with credit declines as the lenders become more cautious
about the indebtedness of individual borrowers and their total credit exposure. In
the absence of more credit, the fraud sprouts from the woodwork like mushrooms
in a soggy forest.
In California today, home prices are down between 25%-40% in the central valley. From
San Bernadino to Stockton, home prices are in free-fall and their physical condition is
actually worse than their price decline. The borrowers are locked out of the financing
market and there is no logical buyer for these homes outside of the original borrower.
The foreclosure wave will hit these neighborhoods like the Asian Tsunami. If you plug in
15% depreciation in housing prices and 50% loss severities into our Subprime model, the
capital structure is wiped out all the way to the AA tranches.
In the Subprime Credit Strategies Funds, we continue to hold our initial positions and
have not taken any profits yet. In Hayman, we are short credit in the US (both Subprime
RMBS and corporate credit) and long non-US equities and debt. We are short US
consumer based equities, preferreds, and debt. I think the world is going to begin to
decouple from the US and realize that currency appreciation coupled with the globes
best growth is an attractive alternative to fraudulent ratings, US dollar depreciation, and
financial inventions used to export risk.
Sincerely,
J. Kyle Bass
Managing Partner

Hayman July 07

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Hayman July 07

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Hayman Capital

2626 Cole Avenue, Suite 200

The Greatest Bait and Switch of ALL TIME

The Moral Hazard of HOT Potatoes

Buyers are now BEWARE

Credit Markets and Where we are today in Subprime

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