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Sallie Mae (NYSE: SLM) logo I didn't think the news could get worse for SLM Corp. (NYSE: SLM), the parent of student loan giant Sallie Mae. As we noted on BloggingStocks earlier today, CEO Albert Lord put on a bizarre performance during a conference call on Wednesday, cursing and telling bad, violence-tinged jokes while providing no substantial information to analysts. This morning, TheStreet.com called Lord's "stunning performance" one of the five dumbest things on Wall Street this week, as it helped send the stock down 10% on the day.

But that's not the only bad news for SLM today. The New York Times is reporting that Sallie Mae now faces a $1 billion loss related to its falling stock price. Seems that SLM was making bets on its own stock price, entering into "equity forward contracts" that require it to buy its shares at set prices in the future. That was all fine and well as long its stock was rising -- which it did for years, from $10 a share in 2000 to $57 just this past July. But since then, the stock is down over 50%, which makes those forward contracts a money losing proposition.

According to The Times, SLM was facing a payment this week of $1.95 billion for stock worth only $909 million. Yesterday, it managed to delay that purchase by two months. But that hardly solves the problem. SLM has forward contracts in place to buy 44 million of its own shares, at an average price of roughly $44. Some of the contracts do not take effect for years -- unless the share price falls too far. When the share price reaches the $19.58 to $24.75 range, banks can demand immediate payment. Yesterday, the stock closed at $20.53.

So it looks like Sallie Mae is going to need to find a lot of money in a hurry. The deal it made yesterday removed some of the repayment triggers, but also moved the contracts forward to a February termination. That means that SLM needs to raise billions of dollars in two months. I hope Mr. Lord has the phone numbers of some deep-pocketed Chinese investors.

Yet more bad news for Sallie Mae (SLM) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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