During the boom, Wachovia banker Robert Verrone made money by slicing and dicing billions of dollars in commercial real estate loans. After the crash, he made money by restructuring those loans before they blew up. As Wachovia’s No. 1 underwriter of securitized commercial real estate debt between 2002 and 2007, Verrone resigned just months before Wachovia nearly collapsed and was acquired by Wells Fargo at the fire sale price of $15.1 billion.

 Questions:

 1.  Why is/was he called “Large Loan” Verrone?

2.  What does his company called Iron Hound Management do? What is your opinion of his ethics as portrayed in the article?

3.  In the article, he says “”We sold every penny of cash flow to anybody in the world who wanted to buy it.”  What is he referring to?

 Source:

 Leonard, D. (2010). The Ballad of “Large Loan” Verrone, BusinessWeek, September 9 (Retrievable online at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_38/b4195070500566.htm)