According to Housingwire (“Ocwen offering indemnification to company directors and executive officers”):

“By its own admission, Ocwen Financial (OCN) is facing 21 pending investigations in 15 different states, is currently facing delisting by New York Stock Exchange for delaying the release of its annual report, and has run afoul of investors and homeowners alike.”

So no one should be surprised that top management is feeling some heat. The decision should not have been too difficult for the company, since the choice was pretty clear if it was to keep the execs – it was either indemnification or the exit doors.

Riddle me this, Batman: Didn’t Ocwen already have an indemnification policy for its directors and officers?  No one would ever agree to serve on a publicly traded company without one in place. You’d have to be nuts to ever serve on Ocwen’s board without the legal equivalent of a suit of Kevlar.

My guess is that most of the Ocwen directors and officers weren’t satisfied with the current policy, and wanted individual contracts, review by their own counsel, and backed by multi-million dollar D&O insurance policies, together with all sorts of other spiffs.

But even with an ironclad indemnification agreement, who in their right mind would want to spend their every waking hour, in criminal and civil investigations, depositions, and trials? And will Ocwen provide a stand-in for the perp-walk? That’s what’s coming.  The handwriting is on the wall; every regulator and hungry plaintiff’s attorney is looking for a piece of Ocwen’s scalp.  Its Q-Score must be toe-to-toe with Lance Armstrong’s.

Lastly, who buys Ocwen stock today? A year ago its share price was $40. On March 27, 2015, it was going at the fire sale price of $8.00, i.e. an 80% fall from grace.  Its market cap [the value of outstanding shares] was north of $5 billion; now it’s barely above $1 billion.  Maybe the shareholders who left got tired of funding the millions of dollars of settlements and fines the company has paid – and will continue to pay.

Will the last Ocwen employee to leave please turn out the lights?  ~PCQ