Quick, who was Ownit Mortgage Solutions?

Give up? Well, it was a US state of California company, one of the top 15 subprime mortgage companies, and it went bankrupt -- in early December 2006.

The financial company Merrill Lynch had a 15% stake in Ownit and, at the time, a few insightful commentators (mainly outside the US) asked whether Ownit was the canary in the US subprime mortgage coal mine. Looking back, it apparently was, although few financial institutions paid much attention to Ownit's demise, including Merrill Lynch.