The Julia La Roche Show · Saturday, August 8, 2026
Chris Whalen argues that United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) has demonstrated a complete lack of competence in running a public company, comparing its situation to Countrywide during the financial crisis. He specifically criticizes their failed attempt to hedge the balance sheet of Two Harbors before acquiring it, a deal that ultimately fell through.
“Well, yeah, we've talked about this for a while. We wrote several pieces on the blog about how United Wholesale Mortgage was reminding us of Countrywide, you may remember that name from the great financial crisis. And they've just demonstrated a complete lack of competence when it comes to running a public company.”
“So my point is is that when you see somebody make a mistake like this, where they don't even realize how dumb what they are doing is, with a public company, you just gotta ask yourself a question, why is this guy even here?”
“Matt Ishpia is number two in line and everybody else is in the back. So I don't know what's going to happen with this. I'm happy we were right in our assessment of the situation, but it just makes me sick at heart to see something like this happen in the mortgage sector.”