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Bank of America Corp. (BAC), faced with a glut of foreclosed and abandoned houses it can’t sell, has a new tool to get rid of the most decrepit ones: a bulldozer.

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The biggest U.S. mortgage servicer will donate 100 foreclosed houses in the Cleveland area and in some cases contribute to their demolition in partnership with a local agency that manages blighted property. The bank has similar plans in Detroit and Chicago, with more cities to come, and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Fannie Mae are conducting or considering their own programs.

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Disposing of repossessed homes is one of the biggest headaches for lenders in the U.S., where 1,679,125 houses, or one in every 77, were in some stage of foreclosure as of June, according to research firm RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, California. The prospect of those properties flooding the market has depressed prices and driven off buyers concerned that housing values will keep dropping.

“There is way too much supply,” said Gus Frangos, president of the Cleveland-based Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., which works with lenders, government officials and homeowners to salvage vacant homes. “The best thing we can do to stabilize the market is to get the garbage off.”

Bank of America had 40,000 foreclosures in the first quarter, saddling the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender with taxes and maintenance costs. The bank announced the Cleveland program last month, has committed as many as 100 properties in Detroit and 150 in Chicago, and may add as many as nine cities by the end of the year, said Rick Simon, a company spokesman.

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Ohio ranked among the top 10 states with the most foreclosure filings in June, according to RealtyTrac. The state has 71,617 foreclosed homes, Cuyahoga County 9,797 and Cleveland 6,778, RealtyTrac said.

The tear-downs are in varying states of disrepair, from uninhabitable to badly damaged. Simon said some are worth less than $10,000, and it would cost too much to make them livable.

Donating a house may create an income-tax deduction, said Robert Willens, an independent accounting analyst based in New York. A bank might deduct as much as the fair market value if a home wasn’t acquired with the explicit intent of knocking it down, he said.

Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae already started donating houses and demolition funds in Ohio. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the biggest U.S. home lender, gave 26 properties and $127,000 to the Cuyahoga land bank, said Russ Cross, Midwest regional servicing director for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Since 2009, Wells Fargo made more than 800 donations, the bank said.

Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company operating under U.S. conservatorship, made its first deal with the Cuyahoga land bank in 2009, and sells houses to the organization at a “very nominal value,” or about $1 and an additional $200 in closing costs, said P.J. McCarthy, who heads alternative disposition programs.

Fannie Mae sold 200 foreclosures to the Cuyahoga organization in 2010 and has similar programs in Detroit and Chicago. Cleveland is the only city where Washington-based Fannie Mae contributes $3,500 toward demolition, McCarthy said.

“It’s an economically justifiable transaction,” McCarthy said. “Holding on to a property that might sell for $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 for several hundred days is not in anybody’s best interest.”

JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank, has donated or sold at a discount almost 1,900 properties valued at more than $100 million in more than 37 states since late 2008, including 22 in Cleveland, said Jim O’Donnell, manager of community revitalization. The majority aren’t demolished, he said.

Citigroup has been donating foreclosures since 2008 through the National Community Stabilization Trust, according to an e- mailed statement from Natalie Abatemarco, managing director for the bank’s office of homeownership preservation. The New York- based company, ranked third among U.S. lenders, is part of the Washington-based nonprofit trust’s pilot program that starts in late August to provide funds for purchases in distressed neighborhoods, and the money can be used toward demolition, Abatemarco said.

Demolishing all of Cleveland’s foreclosed and abandoned properties might cost $250 million, Frangos said. There are as many as 13,000, according to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Neighborhood Progress Inc., a nonprofit organization working to counter the effects of foreclosures in six Cleveland areas, according to its website. The Cuyahoga County land bank owns about 899 properties and will demolish about 700 in the next six to seven months, Frangos said.

The oversupply of homes once prompted Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), to quip in February 2010 that one solution was to “blow up a lot of houses -- a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program.’”

Still, the knockdowns aren’t likely to outpace foreclosures, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president. Foreclosures may accelerate as banks clear a backlog caused by soft real estate markets and legal disputes over tactics used to seize homes.

　　10月1日後，投資者可在銀行、基金公司之外的獨立第三方處買到基金，並獲得更多的增值服務。

　　隨著《證券投資基金銷售管理辦法》（下稱「辦法」）的正式實施，基金第三方銷售機構的牌照審發工作將展開，基金業多年來被銀行壟斷銷售渠道的現象將借此突破。

　　新規對基金銷售機構准入條件大為放寬。如，將組織形式放寬為有限責任公司或合夥企業；將出資人放寬至具有基金、證券或其他金融相關從業經歷的專 業個人出資人；將具有基金從業資格人員最低數量從30人放寬至10人等。證監會希望借此鼓勵第三方支付機構與銀行體系逐步形成競爭，更好地提高基金銷售服 務。

　　一直以來，銀行渠道在基金產品銷售方面佔比超過六成以上。今年上半年多數基金公司出現收入和盈利雙降，且盈利下滑幅度大幅超越收入情況，表明基 金公司成本大幅上升已拖累業績。其中，因新基金密集發行而支付給銷售機構的客戶維護費大幅增長是基金公司成本上升的主要推動力。

　　多位基金公司人士表示，今年成立的新基金尾隨佣金比例（即支付銷售機構的客戶維護費佔基金管理費的比例）大部分超過了33％，也就是說，銷售機構分食了三分之一以上的新基金管理費收入。

　　客戶維護費是指基金管理人與基金銷售機構約定的用以向基金銷售機構支付客戶服務及銷售活動中產生的相關費用，該費用從基金管理人收取的基金管理費中列支。長期以來，大銀行因渠道優勢，向基金公司收取的費用水漲船高，令眾多基金公司苦不堪言。

　　但此次「辦法」出台後，新生的第三方銷售機構短期內仍無法動搖銀行的壟斷地位。其成立之初，諸多捆綁費用對其盈利空間構成擠壓。據瞭解，第三方 銷售機構如果通過第三方支付平台完成支付，必須向其繳納最低0.3%的費用。另外，除繳納營業稅外，第三方銷售機構須與監督機構達成銷售賬戶監督協議，目 前有監督資質的商業銀行在第三方基金銷售的監督業務上或每筆收取0.1%—0.2%左右的費用。

　　目前，包括實施細則、數據接口、清算結算等相關細節在內的第三方銷售機構執行細則尚未明確，諸多企業正在進行各種申報材料、等待牌照及相應的技 術準備。業內冀望，第三方基金銷售機構所帶來的鯰魚效應可攪動基金業傳統銷售困局，倒逼基金公司更關注投資人需求，帶動基金產品的創新，為行業帶來一池春 水。