Unit ‘Got Off the Ground’

This letter is in response to a news item which appeared in the “Briefly” column of The Times’ Business Section on July 31. The item in question reported on the sale by Financial Corp. of America of its FCA Mortgage Securities subsidiary to Salomon Bros.

A tombstone advertisement on Sept. 15, 1983, announced the sale of $1.5 billion of Federal Home Mortgage Corp. participation certificates, a transaction arranged by FCA Mortgage Securities. This was at the time the largest single financing transaction in U.S. business history, and is but one of a series of multibillion-dollar mortgage securities transactions consummated by this operation during my tenure as general counsel of FCA. To state, as did the news item in question, that this operation “never got off the ground” is grossly inaccurate, as one would have discovered with even a minimal amount of inquiry.

MARK S. DODGE

General Counsel

Trafalgar Holdings, Ltd.

Los Angeles