ABS

  • Tobacco-backed trusts on negative watch

    S&P has placed its ratings on 86 classes from 23 tobacco settlement-backed securitisations on credit watch negative. The tranches are backed by payments from participating manufacturers (PMs) under the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

    Tobacco securitisations are independent of the issuing municipality and are backed solely by payments made by the PMs under the MSA. Under the agreement, the .......

    News Round-up 31 October 2011

  • ABCP programmes merged

    Falcon Asset Securitization Co has merged with Chariot Funding pursuant to a certificate of merger dated 28 October, whereby Chariot is the surviving entity. Chariot is a multi-seller ABCP programme administered by JPMorgan. Chariot issues standard, callable, puttable and extendible ABCP notes, each currently rated A-1 by S&P.

    Chariot will now fund all of the transactions that were previously funded .......

    News Round-up 31 October 2011

  • Asia largely unscathed by crisis

    Asia Pacific and Indian structured finance ratings have been largely unaffected by the global financial crisis, says Fitch. The agency notes that the strength of the regional economies has been a key factor in this performance, with transactions mainly performing in line with expectations.

    "Most economies in APAC have performed well during the global credit crisis, which is often known .......

    News Round-up 31 October 2011

  • Film deal in the works

    Miramax Film NY says it intends to refinance its outstanding indebtedness with a film rights and contracted receivables ABS dubbed Miramax Film-Library Securitization. It is anticipated that, subject to market and other conditions, the Miramax Film-Library Securitization will close in 4Q11. The notes to be issued under the new securitisation facility will be offered and sold to buyers in the .......

    News Round-up 28 October 2011

  • US Bank eyes European growth

    US Bank has completed the conversion process following its purchase of Bank of America's corporate trust business in January (SCI 5 January). The firm has also recently opened offices in London and Dublin, staffed by former BofA employees, with the aim of growing its European business.

    US Bank has purchased 18 corporate trust businesses over the last few years, but .......

    Job Swaps 28 October 2011

  • US auto ABS performance pressured

    Seasonal pressures resulted in weaker delinquency and loss levels for US prime auto loan ABS last month, according to Fitch.

    "Used vehicle values have softened following record highs during the first six months of this year," says Fitch senior director Hylton Heard. "Dealers have been ridding themselves of the 2011 models to make way for the new inventory, which tends .......

    News Round-up 28 October 2011

  • SF partner moves on

    Stephen Whelan has joined Blank Rome as a partner in the financial services group, based in New York. For more than 30 years, he has built a substantial practice in the areas of equipment leasing and structured finance, secured lending and asset securitisation.

    Whelan joins Blank Rome from SNR Denton, where he was a member of the capital markets practice, .......

    Job Swaps 28 October 2011

  • EFSF package unveiled

    The banking package announced yesterday by EU policymakers will allow the EFSF to be leveraged up to five times via two options: collateralised insurance, which will operate only in the primary market; and some form of SPV, with leverage expected to come from the IMF/capital market investors in a tranche structure likely to see the EFSF bearing the first loss. .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • Rise in FFELP prepays expected

    The US government has announced changes to its student loan programme that will likely result in an increase in prepayments in FFELP student loan ABS, according to Fitch. While negative from a credit perspective, the changes are not expected to have any material impact on existing ratings, the agency notes.

    Student loan ABS transactions with borrowers that have loans under .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • 'Significant' improvement seen in charge-offs

    US credit card charge-offs improved significantly in September, according to Moody's Credit Card Index. Moody's charge-off rate fell to 5.27%, its lowest point since December 2007, with the six largest issuers each posting sizeable declines in their trust charge-off rates.

    "September has routinely been a good month for the charge-off rate. Tax refunds in April mean that fewer obligors become .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • ABS parsing service minted

    CMA has launched CMA ABSparsing, a new service that parses ABS auction and offering price runs received by front-office professionals. The platform parses and organises a firm's ABS pricing emails into a format that is easy to use and integrate into internal systems.

    CMA ABSparsing processes data from auction price talk, colour and offering email runs. The data can be .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • Recapitalisation group formed

    Tim O'Connor has joined Sandler O'Neill + Partners as md and head of its newly created recapitalisation and advisory services group. The group will provide advice related to recapitalisations and restructurings, primarily to the middle market.

    O'Connor was most recently executive md at Gleacher & Company, where he founded its recapitalisation and restructuring group and served as co-head of its .......

    Job Swaps 21 October 2011

  • US securitisation issuance passes US$200bn

    At the end of September 2011, with more than US$200bn of qualifying securitisation deals completed, the leaders maintained their places in the SCI US league tables for bank arrangers in the structured credit and ABS markets. All added to their account as the month saw US$29bn of issuance.

    Europe, meanwhile, dragged itself out of the summer lull to see a shade under .......

    News Round-up 20 October 2011

  • Shrinking counterparty eligibility examined

    Fitch says the number of banks with sufficiently high ratings to act as eligible counterparties in triple-A rated structured finance and covered bonds transactions has shrunk materially (see also SCI 28 September). This is putting pressure on how easily counterparties can be replaced and on the liquidity of derivative counterparties. It is also increasing concentration risk in an already vulnerable .......

    News Round-up 20 October 2011

  • ILS head hired

    Michael Popkin has been appointed co-head of insurance-linked securities (ILS) for Towers Watson Capital Markets (TWCM). Based in New York, he will report to Ed Hochberg, head of TWCM.

    In his new role, Popkin will assist clients in a wide range of strategic risk management activities surrounding ILS and industry loss warranties. He will also aid in the development and .......

    Job Swaps 19 October 2011

  • Spanish ABS ratings reviewed

    Moody's says it is considering the implications for Spanish structured finance transactions of its two-notch downgrade of the rating of the government of the Republic of Spain to A1, with a negative outlook. The agency believes that a triple-A rating remains achievable for Spanish structured finance transactions that benefit from sufficient credit enhancement and have highly rated transaction parties or .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2011

  • IDC, FINRA join forces on data

    Interactive Data and FINRA have developed a set of reports designed to provide transparency into US structured securities market activity on a daily basis. The reports consist of the US Structured Trading Activity Report and the US Structured Trading Pricing Tables.

    The reports incorporate FINRA's TRACE data, offering an aggregate summary of daily transactions in the US structured securities market .......

    Job Swaps 18 October 2011

  • Structured lending head hired

    Nomura has appointed Munish Varma as global head of structured lending and special situations, based in London. He will report to Georges Assi, global head of credit products & co-head of fixed income EMEA, and Kieran Higgins, co-head of fixed income EMEA.

    Varma and his group will focus on providing tailored financial solutions at all levels of the capital structure .......

    Job Swaps 18 October 2011

  • Differing drivers for Eurozone performance

    The deterioration in the creditworthiness of some peripheral Eurozone sovereigns has created uncertainty about the performance of securitisations from those countries, says Fitch. Drivers are different across the jurisdictions and performance deterioration is not always driven by sovereign downgrades.

    "Sovereign risk has become of far more importance in the analysis of structured finance transactions in this latest phase of the .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • First floorplan summary shows strong performance

    Moody's has launched a new quarterly auto floorplan ABS sector summary, consolidating key floorplan trust information and performance data used to monitor ratings on outstanding publicly rated securitisations. The first summary reports that performance has remained strong since the economic downturn.

    The summary includes data on monthly payment rates, excess spread and charge-offs. It references approximately US$19bn of outstanding securities, .......

    News Round-up 17 October 2011

  • Restructuring team recruited

    Mark Fennessy has joined Dewey & LeBoeuf's London office as a business solutions & governance partner, heading the European restructuring group. He was previously head of Orrick's European restructuring practice and has extensive experience in all areas of turnaround and insolvency matters, including the Cheyne SIV restructuring (SCI 9 July 2008). His team at Orrick has also been hired by .......

    Job Swaps 14 October 2011
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