NYCB appoints exec chair to deal with real-estate loan losses

Since it reported a big surprise loss on problem commercial real-estate loans a week ago, events have been moving fast at New York Community Bancorp.

First, the share price suffered a near 40% fall on the news.

Then came the downgrades. First was Fitch, which on Friday downgraded NYCB’s issuer default rating from BBB to BBB- and kept even that on negative outlook.

More troubling, on Tuesday, Moody’s took the bank’s baseline credit assessment down by two notches from baa2 to ba1.