Complete news archive

  • Upward ascent

    US RMBS market activity in the weeks to 4 May

    The US RMBS market has maintained its upward ascent over the past few weeks, showing little of the disruption expected due to the principal forgiveness programmes announced in late March. In addition, positive market sentiment has been bolstered by liquidations of seasoned mezzanine bonds and the introduction of high quality new issuance.

    Due to positive market technicals, secondary RMBS prices ......

    Market Reports 5 May 2010

  • Stanfield CLO business sold

    Private equity firm Carlyle Group is to purchase the management contracts on US$5.1bn in CLO and other credit assets from Stanfield Capital Partners, a fixed income asset manager based in New York. The transaction will increase the firm's credit AUM to US$18.1bn from its current US$13bn.

    The transaction is subject to investor consent and is expected to close in the .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • US bank expands RMBS team

    Wells Fargo Securities has expanded its RMBS group with several new appointments. It now provides a full suite of advisory, structuring, research, distribution and trading services.

    Mike Buttner has been appointed the head of RMBS. A 19-year veteran of Wells Fargo, Buttner was most recently responsible for managing the hedging activities of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM)'s servicing rights and .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Bank hires for strategic implementation

    Amsterdam Trade Bank has hired Hans Tamm as its head of corporate finance. The bank says Tamm will be responsible for trade finance services and implementing its new strategies for asset-backed finance and structured commodity finance.

    He reports directly to recently appointed ceo Martin Czurda. Tamm joins from Al Rajhi Capital in Riyadh and has previously headed the loan syndication .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Sharp rise in government risk index

    While markets focused their attention on Greece, Portugal and Spain following S&P's downgrades this week, the systemic threat of a risk repricing in sovereign balance sheets was much clearer, according to Credit Derivatives Research (CDR). CDR's Government Risk Index (GRI) - comprised of seven of the largest government debt issuers in the world - rose over 25% this week, testing .......

    News Round-up 5 May 2010

  • CMBS trader joins Cohen

    Veteran trader Rob Cestari has joined Cohen & Company as md from boutique investment bank Maxim Group. He will specifically focus on CMBS in his new role.

    Speaking exclusively to SCI, coo Ted Kallina says: "Cohen & Company hired Rob to bolster our existing CMBS trading effort. We believe that the trading of CMBS securities offers one of the best .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Distressed debt head moves on

    Derivatives dealer Conduit Capital Markets has appointed James Moylan md and head of non-investment grade credit trading. Moylan was formerly md and head of European high yield/leveraged loans and distressed debt at Barclays Capital.

    .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • REIT plans further MBS purchases

    Invesco Mortgage Capital has completed its public offering of nine million shares of common stock for gross proceeds of US$186.75m. The REIT expects to use the net proceeds from this offering to make additional acquisitions of RMBS, CMBS and mortgage loans.

    Credit Suisse Securities (USA) and Morgan Stanley acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. Keefe Bruyette & Woods, .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • ACA Euro CLO transfer confirmed

    Avoca Capital has confirmed its appointment as investment manager of the €400m ACA Euro CLO 2007-1 (see SCI issue 176) as of 30 April, following approval from the voting noteholders and rating agency consent. This transaction represents Avoca's third successful replacement manager mandate, having been appointed to manage the €840m CLIO European CLO in July 2009, replacing Lehman Brothers International .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Mortgage recovery fund closes

    Invesco has held a final closing for its Mortgage Recovery Fund, with total commitments of more than US$1.46bn. Invesco's offering invests in its Public-Private Investment Fund and provides exposure to mortgage loans and securities.

    The fund is managed by Invesco Fixed Income, Invesco Real Estate and WL Ross & Co. Invesco says the fund has been designed to invest in .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Peer group benchmarking tool introduced

    S&P Valuation and Risk Strategies has launched a new credit evaluation benchmark called the Credit Health Panel. It provides a quantitative credit perspective on over 3,000 rated and 23,000 unrated non-financial public companies.

    The Credit Health Panel is designed to give investors a dashboard view of the credit health of a corporate entity relative to a broad set of entity .......

    News Round-up 5 May 2010

  • Fund appoints investment counsellor

    Eaton Vance Investment Counsel, a division of Eaton Vance Management, has appointed Duke Laflamme as vp investment counsellor. He moves from the group's fixed income team, where he was also a vp and portfolio manager. Laflamme now reports to Westy Saltonstall, Eaton Vance Investment Counsel president.

    Laflamme's previous responsibilities included managing investment grade fixed income and money market portfolios, and .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Credit strategy team head resigns

    Barclays Capital has confirmed that Robert McAdie has resigned. The former head of European credit strategy is replaced on an interim basis by New York-based Ashish Shah, who will not come to London but will rather run the team from the US.

    .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • New OTC data platform prepped

    CME Group has selected the XigniteOnDemand platform to support new on-demand OTC market data products and services. The new on-demand platform will launch in Q310 and enable CME Group to distribute OTC data offerings quickly and cost effectively, the exchange operator says.

    "With the ongoing development of our multiple OTC product and service offerings, and the need to deliver this .......

    News Round-up 5 May 2010

  • Transferred Callidus CLOs named

    MAPS CLO Fund I and the Callidus Debt Partners CLO Fund II to VII transactions are among the nine CDOs that GSO/Blackstone Debt Funds Management has taken over from Callidus Capital Management (SCI passim). Some minor changes were made to the collateral management agreement for a number of the deals, which Moody's says are not inconsistent with its rating methodology.

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • IDC acquired

    Interactive Data Corporation is to be acquired by investment funds managed by Silver Lake and Warburg Pincus in a transaction with a total value of US$3.4bn. The move follows a review of strategic alternatives undertaken by the firm.

    Under the agreement, Interactive Data's stockholders will receive US$33.86 in cash for each share of Interactive Data common stock they own. This .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Securitisation specialist hired

    Securitisation lawyer Andrew Jinks has joined Clayton Utz as a partner. He has 20 years of experience in legal practice and specialises in international and domestic securitisation and capital markets transactions. The firm says Australia's securitisation market is showing signs of a resurgence and believes Jinks joins at a time when credit markets are stabilising and economic confidence is returning.

    .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • New indices to set consumer default benchmark

    S&P and Experian have announced a partnership to launch a series of consumer credit default indices in the US. The indices will be launched on 18 May and seek to measure the balance-weighted proportion of consumer credit accounts that go into default for the first time each month.

    There will be four headline indices determined by loan type, as well .......

    News Round-up 5 May 2010

  • Kamakura-Reuters cooperation grows

    Kamakura Corporation has expanded its relationship with Thomson Reuters. Last year Reuters began distributing a small subset of Kamakura Risk Information Services (KRIS) default probabilities (see SCI issue 153) and from May onwards KRIS default probabilities for the 1,700 public firms with traded CDS will be available on the Reuters 3000 Xtra service, along with KRIS sovereign default probabilities for .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010

  • Troubled companies index maintains improvement

    The Kamakura index of troubled public companies improved in April for the twelfth time in the last 13 months, declining to 9.46% from 9.69% in March. Credit conditions are now better than credit conditions in 74% of the months since the index's initiation in January 1990, and the index is 4.23 percentage points better than its historical average of 13.69%.

    News Round-up 5 May 2010

  • New CRE broker-dealer minted

    NorthStar Realty Finance's wholly-owned subsidiary NRF Capital Markets has been registered with the US SEC and approved as a member of FINRA. The new broker-dealer is based in Denver, Colorado and will distribute certain NorthStar offerings, including the non-traded commercial mortgage REIT NorthStar Real Estate Income Trust, which will focus on commercial real estate debt investments.

    .......

    Job Swaps 5 May 2010
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