from ZeroHedge:

As discussed first thing this morning, the fate of Canada’s largest alternative mortgage lender, Home Capital Group, appears to have been decided over the weekend, when in the span of just one week, over 70% of the company’s deposit base had been withdrawn, effectively mothballing the business, leaving just a sale or liquidation as the two possible outcomes even as a $2 billion emergency line of credit keeps the company afloat, at least until HCG’s $12.8 billion in GICS mature some time over the next 30 to 60 days.

Predictably, the news of the ongoing bank run once again spooked shareholders, who sent its stock sliding by 10%, and wiping out two-thirds of the company’s market cap in under 2 weeks.

A bigger red flag emerged when concerns about possible contagion appeared to have been justified Canada’s Equitable Group, another alternative mortgage lender, said Monday it had started seeing “an elevated but manageable” decrease in deposit balances, traditionally a polite way by management to admit a bank jog is taking place. The company said that customers had withdrawn an average C$75 million each day between Wednesday and Friday, and while the withdrawals so far are modest, and represented 2.4% of the total deposit base, the recent HCG case study showed how quickly such a bank run could escalate. And while liquid assets remained at roughly C$1 billion after the outflows, the company also announced that it had taken out its own C$2 billion credit line with a group of Canadian banks, just in case the bank run was only getting started.

Having taken preemptive action, Equitable’s loans terms were more favorable than Home Capital’s, which as reported last week is paying an effective rate of 22.5% on the first half of the C$2 billion credit line that it tapped Monday from the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.

According to Bloomberg, Equitable is paying a far more modest 1.25% interest rate on the drawn portion, and a 0.75% commitment fee and a 0.5% standby charge.

Trying to mitigate concerns, Andrew Moor, CEO of Equitable said that “the issues affecting the well-known trust company in Toronto are their issues alone, and it’s unfortunate the banking industry has been dragged into it.” He spoke on a call to discuss earnings, which were published almost two weeks earlier than planned due to the Home Capital selloff.

To be sure, looking at historical credit losses, Equitable would be deemed quite safe, barely ever having seen any, which in retrospect may be troubling: another company which is in the same boat is none other than Home Capital Group.

Following news of the Equitable loan, a relief rally sent shares of the lender soaring by 26% to C$46 in Toronto, helping recoup some of the 41% drop from last week. Other Canadian bank stocks that had fallen last week also recovered Monday. First National Financial Corp., a mortgage lender, jumped 2 percent. Bloomberg notes.

So while Canada’s nervous investors, not to mention its regulators, exhaled a breath of relief today hoping that things are back to normal even as they continue to keep a close watch on Equitable and other alt-lenders to see if the panic has subsided, attention turned to Home Capital’s bonds. Bloomberg reports that Home Capital’s bonds maturing in December next year were trading little changed at 90.6 cents on the dollar on Monday, according to Bloomberg data, yielding about 10 percent, compared with less than 3 percent on April 19. Home Capital also has C$325 million in 2.35 percent bonds maturing on May 24.

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