ABS

  • Trepp invests in solar analysis platform

    Solar energy investment analysis and decision making platform Mercatus has closed its Series A round of financing. Trepp has joined Vision Ridge Partners, Augment Ventures and Shah Capital in investing in the company and Trepp coo Dan Gottlieb will also join Mercatus' board.

    Mercatus allows lenders and capital market investors to harness the strength of its investment analysis and analytics .......

    Job Swaps 29 January 2014

  • Vitality Re deals scrutinised

    Moody's says it views the risk and required capital reduction from Aetna's medical benefit claims transactions as "quite modest and temporary". The comment comes after its latest Vitality Re V catastrophe bond - the US$200m five-year series 2014-1 - completed last week.

    Each transaction provides collateralised excess of loss reinsurance coverage limited to the principal amount of the notes issued .......

    News Round-up 29 January 2014

  • Open-source modelling framework unveiled

    An open, independent natural catastrophe loss modelling platform has launched after two years in development. Dubbed Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, the offering is owned by 21 insurers, reinsurers and brokers, but is open to anyone with an interest in creating new catastrophe risk models.

    Oasis is not-for-profit and aims to bring down the costs of modelling, as well as providing .......

    News Round-up 29 January 2014

  • CIR RFC issued

    Moody's has published a request for comment seeking feedback on proposed changes to its methodology for assigning counterparty instrument ratings (CIRs). The agency is proposing to change how it assesses the effect of counterparty linkage on swap CIRs in order to conform to its cross-sector rating methodology on assessing swap counterparties in structured finance cashflow transactions. If the proposed changes .......

    News Round-up 28 January 2014

  • PCAs to address commingling risk

    German securitisations are increasingly being structured with a PCA that is a collection account in the name of the servicer but pledged to the SPV. This PCA differs from the typical servicer collection account in that collected moneys should not be commingled with the servicer's insolvency estate in case of servicer insolvency. In Fitch's view, the PCA could reduce such .......

    News Round-up 28 January 2014

  • ABS supply hits highs

    US ABS BWIC volume reached a monthly high yesterday as traders returned to their desks after the ABS Vegas conference. Bid-list volume approached US$500m, driven by high auto supply and a variety of student loan tranches.

    SCI's PriceABS data yesterday captured a number of auto names that had not previously appeared in the archive, such as the ALLYA .......

    Market Reports 28 January 2014

  • Asian ratings poised for positive performance

    S&P expects collateral performance and structural enhancement to underpin stable to marginally positive ratings performance for Asia-Pacific structured finance securities. However, tranches that have key rating dependencies on transaction counterparties could continue to be affected by the credit conditions that would impact the credit profiles of the counterparties, the agency says.

    The economic outlook is mixed across countries where outstanding .......

    News Round-up 28 January 2014

  • Subprime auto ABS remain 'protected'

    A potential slow-down in the growth of US auto sales and increased competition to maintain market share could encourage lenders to reach out to borrowers with weaker credit. Based on a comparison of credit metrics of subprime auto ABS deals that were issued in 2011 - when underwriting was tighter - with deals from 2012 and 2013, Wells Fargo ABS .......

    News Round-up 23 January 2014

  • RFC issued on sovereign approach

    Fitch has published a criteria exposure draft detailing how ratings of structured finance (SF) notes and covered bonds (CVB) are constrained by the credit quality of the sovereign to which the transaction is exposed. In particular, it provides detail regarding the agency's current approach to assigning SF and CVB ratings that are higher than the relevant sovereign local currency issuer .......

    News Round-up 23 January 2014

  • Banner year for ILS secondary market

    The insurance-linked securities market experienced a surge in issuance last year to end only US$800m short of 2007's record US$8.24bn issuance. It was also a very strong year for the secondary market and the tightening seen in 2013 is set to carry over into this year.

    Swiss Re Capital Markets reports that catastrophe bond supply hitting its trading desk last .......

    News 23 January 2014

  • Card performance to level off

    US credit card charge-offs and delinquencies improved in 4Q13, locking in year-end results on a positive note, according to Fitch's latest quarterly index for the sector. Monthly payment rates also held steady at record highs.

    "Borrower behaviour has clearly improved as consumers remain disciplined in paying down their credit card debt," observes Fitch md Michael Dean.

    Charge-offs finished the year .......

    News Round-up 22 January 2014

  • Dynamic ILS fund offered

    Falcon Private Bank has launched the Twelve-Falcon Insurance Opportunities Fund, a dynamic catastrophe bond fund in UCITS format. The offering - which will be managed by Twelve Capital - is designed to provide a low-correlation investment opportunity, as well as a flexible scheme for allocation.

    .......

    News Round-up 22 January 2014

  • Reinsurance investment strategies minted

    New Ocean Capital Management has launched two reinsurance investment strategies. In addition to capital furnished by its founders - XL Group and Stone Point Capital - the firm has received capital commitments from funds managed by Dowling Capital Partners I and a global asset manager. Dowling Capital has also acquired an equity participation in the company. New Ocean deployed capital .......

    Job Swaps 17 January 2014

  • Tohoku-related distribution disclosed

    CATCo Investment Management has announced that a distribution of 2.887c will be payable to ordinary shareholders of the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities fund on 24 January. The payment relates to the Master Fund's exposure to the Tohoku earthquake in Japan, following an agreement with a reinsurance counterparty.

    CATCo had two reinsurance counterparties with potential exposure to the event and took a .......

    News Round-up 17 January 2014

  • ILS exposures, sponsors expanding

    S&P rated US$5.16bn of catastrophe bonds last year, a slight increase on 2012's total of US$4.8bn. The number of cat bonds the agency rated in 2013 (approximately 68% of all cat bonds issued last year) was the second highest ever, surpassed only by the total US$6.1bn it rated in 2007.

    Last year, cat bonds were issued by five new sponsors: .......

    News Round-up 17 January 2014

  • MiFID 2 rules agreed

    An agreement in principle has been reached by the European Parliament and the European Council on MiFID 2 rules. The rules are designed to close the loopholes in the existing legislation and include proposals to regulate high-frequency trading.

    The new rules will apply to investment firms, market operators and services providing post-trade transparency information in the EU. They are set .......

    News Round-up 17 January 2014

  • New SLM conduit minted

    Sallie Mae has closed a new US$8bn ABCP facility that matures in January 2016. The facility replaces a US$5.5bn conduit that is set to expire in January 2015, with the remainder available for federally guaranteed loan acquisition or refinancing. Deutsche Bank ABS analysts suggest that Sallie Mae could use the facility to call outstanding FFELP student loan ABS that are .......

    News Round-up 17 January 2014

  • Equity upside benefit in Punch proposal

    Punch's restructuring proposal (SCI 15 January) includes a number of modifications from December, including increased PIK coupons on junior notes. Barclays Capital analysts believe the proposal for Punch A represents a transfer of upside in the recovery of the Punch group from the junior bondholders to Punch equity as a result of the principal write-off in the class B, C .......

    News Round-up 16 January 2014

  • Master ABS structures examined

    French auto originators have over the past 12 months made increasing use of master ABS structures, which provide for the possibility of additional note issuances out of an existing structure. Moody's notes in its latest Credit Insight publication that the use of such structures has credit positives and negatives for French ABS transactions because while these structures provide some protective .......

    News Round-up 15 January 2014

  • Punch restructuring proposal published

    Punch has released the full terms of its restructuring proposal, which represents the culmination of 14 months of stakeholder engagement. The restructuring is conditional upon the approval of the Punch A and Punch B securitisation noteholders, as well as certain other securitisation creditors. Consent solicitation documents relating to each securitisation and a notice of noteholder meetings to be held on .......

    News Round-up 15 January 2014

  • Autos boost ABS supply

    US ABS BWIC volume rose markedly yesterday to US$219m. Offering levels were down slightly for auto loan bonds, which dominated supply, with several tranches debuting in SCI's PriceABS data.

    Among the auto ABS tranches out for the bid that had not previously been picked up by PriceABS was HUNT 2012-1 B, which traded during the session. Also circulating .......

    Market Reports 15 January 2014
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