I wanted to listen to their Credit Suisse Conference Presentation today but I had to go out. I went back tonight and it didn't seem to be archived, but the pdf slides and such are there on the salliemae.com website.
The Credit Suisse Conference Presentation is now available on the SallieMae site and I listened to it this afternoon. Jack Remondi, Vice Chairman and CFO, did the talking.......
I also found the .pdf of the presentation slides and was able to follow along fairly well. (Almost reminded me of being on a net-meeting back in my w*rking days!
)
The subject of potential subsidy cuts from the Obama administration was not addressed.
2009 writeoffs were addressed including changes to the forbearance policy which is causing charges which otherwise would occur in later years to be pulled into 2009.
They are expecting positive earnings of $1.45 to $1.65 for the year.
On 1/22/09 S&P affirmed SLM senior unsecured dept (like ISM and OSM) to be BBB-.
Remondi sounded relatively upbeat which, of course, would be his job at this kind of presentation. He pointed out that the quality of their loan portfolio is increasing. He mentioned that although students defaulting on loans gets lots of press, the vast majority of their loans, 94% IIRC, are current. He also pointed out that although the ROI of a college education is being questioned, overall unemployment has now surpassed 7% but holders of four year college degrees (or better) are experiencing unemployment of less than 4%.
As to whether Obama's budget would include subsidy cuts to SallieMae, I dunno...... I guess you have to ask yourself whether Obama's outlook would be to change a policy with the likely result being a financial kick in the groin to equity holders and lenders to SallieMae, a provider of student loans.
I have no clue.
