Simon Property Group Inc.’s plan to invest in bankrupt rival General Growth Properties Inc. raises antitrust concerns that would hurt the mall owner after it reorganizes, Brookfield Asset Management Inc. said.

A plan by Brookfield and its partners, Fairholme Capital Management LLC and Pershing Square Capital Management LP, to bring General Growth out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy is less risky than the competing proposal by Simon, Brookfield Chief Executive Officer J. Bruce Flatt said in a letter to General Growth executives. Flatt said his group won’t proceed without being issued warrants that Simon has excluded from its offer.

“We believe that a significant toe-hold position by GGP’s largest direct competitor will be a material ongoing impediment to the prosperity of the company,” Flatt said in the letter.

Scattered around Los Angeles are some surprisingly valuable vacant lots disguised by weeds or broken blacktop or the remains of an unwanted building — and many have quietly come to market, thanks to the real estate collapse.

Billions of dollars were lost by developers who bought land to build high-profile projects but weren't able to get their plans off the ground, even after spending lavishly on architectural designs and other measures to get their buildings approved by local officials. As the real estate cycle plays out, the pained exit of ambitious builders has created an unusual abundance of opportunities to buy expensive eyesores.

"There are a mess of these around town," real estate appraiser Steven Norris said. "Dirty corners entitled for high-rises and they're just parking cars on them."

California's attorney general on Monday accused Moody's Investors Service of stonewalling his probe into why it gave its highest credit ratings to risky mortgage-backed securities that helped ignite the U.S. credit crisis.

Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office took the "virtually unprecedented" step last Friday of filing a petition seeking a court order to enforce a subpoena his office issued last September demanding information about how Moody's sets its credit ratings.

Ginnie Mae has suspended granting approvals to prospective issuers of reverse mortgages until it completes a “comprehensive review” of the risks associated with its HMBS program. HMBS are standardized mortgage-backed securities that will be collateralized by Federal Housing Administration-insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans. Recent FHA program changes and the growth of government backing for mortgage lending over the past two years are send to have prompted the suspension of approvals.

Credit-default swaps tied to MGIC Investment Corp. led a decline among mortgage insurers after the company posted a narrower quarterly loss and said it will sell $1bn in stock and notes.

Swaps tied to Milwaukee-based MGIC, the largest US mortgage insurer, fell 6.1 percentage points to 4.4% upfront, according to CMA DataVision. That means an investor buying protection on $10m of debt would pay an initial $440,000 as well as $500,000 a year.

MGIC lost $150.1m, or $1.20 a share, in the first quarter, down from $184.6m, or $1.49 a share, in the year-earlier period, the company said today in a statement.

The darkest cloud over the economic recovery — the troubled commercial real estate market — may be clearing a bit.

Prices of commercial property are up slightly compared with last fall. Loan modifications have risen sharply the past six months. Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), a big funding source that was comatose for two years, has come to life recently.

The developments won't alleviate the sector's biggest problem: the rising pace of defaults. But they should contain the damage and provide a lifeline to better-performing properties, analysts say.

Magnetar Capital LLC told investors it never sought to bet on the decline of the subprime-mortgage market, and that it didn't select or have control over the individual assets that went into deals that have since been called "built to fail."

The Evanston, Ill., hedge-fund group has been accused of making trades similar to those at the heart of the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc.