Complete news archive

  • Continued improvement for CMBS delinquencies

    June marked the thirteenth straight month of improvement in the US CMBS delinquency rate. Dropping by 22bp to 6.05%, the reading is 260bp lower year-over-year and 429bp below the all-time high from 2012, according to Trepp.

    Industrial loans saw the most improvement in June, dropping by 55bp, after being the only property type to worsen in May. The retail segment .......

    News Round-up 2 July 2014

  • Canary Wharf II amendments 'credit neutral'

    Canary Wharf Group (CWG), the sponsor of the Canary Wharf Finance II CMBS, has sold its interest in the 10 Upper Bank Street property. The building - which is Clifford Chance's London headquarters - was recently re-valued at £780m, up from an estimated £685m in June 2013.

    As a result, 130% of the asset allocated loan amount (£577.9m) will be .......

    News Round-up 2 July 2014

  • CMBS liquidations drop

    The volume of US CMBS loan liquidations dropped to US$932.03m in June from US$1.02bn in May, according to Trepp. Of the loans that were liquidated, 90% by balance fell into the greater than 2% loss severity category.

    June loss severity came in at 45.32%, down by 362bp from May's 48.94% and just below the 12-month moving average of 46.8%. The .......

    News Round-up 2 July 2014

  • CLO credit quality stabilising

    The credit quality of new and outstanding CLOs in both the US and Europe has stabilised, after deteriorating somewhat in 2013, according to Moody's. At the same time, rating upgrades have far outweighed downgrades, due to the rapid deleveraging of senior notes.

    US transactions have benefitted from strong collateral coverage and adequate buffers for their quality-test covenants, allowing the quality .......

    News Round-up 2 July 2014

  • Steady secondary CLO supply

    It was another fairly busy session for the US CLO secondary market yesterday. SCI's PriceABS data captured 26 unique US CLO tranches circulating on Tuesday, with paper from the top to the bottom of the capital stack achieving covers.

    Deal vintages ranged from 2005 to 2014. Among the oldest paper out for the bid was the .......

    Market Reports 2 July 2014

  • PCS criteria revised

    Prime Collateralised Securities (PCS) has introduced the first substantial revision of its criteria in relation to high quality securitisations. The move is designed to raise the standard enshrined in the label, with a few criteria being softened or removed when they proved not to add anything to the quality represented by the label or when the market could demonstrate that .......

    News Round-up 2 July 2014

  • Broker-dealer merger lined up

    Amherst Securities Group and Pierpont Securities have entered into a definitive agreement to merge. The combined broker-dealer will be called Amherst Pierpont Securities.

    The new company will provide clients with access to a broad range of fixed income products, including RMBS, CMBS, ABS and other highly-structured transactions. The firm will also offer analytics, an enhanced trading platform and a broader .......

    Job Swaps 2 July 2014

  • Law firm adds pair

    Dechert has appointed two new partners to the firm. Eleni Skordaki joins the finance and real estate practice in London and Johan Terblanche joins the financial services practice in Luxembourg.

    Skordaki's practice focuses on real estate financings and restructurings. She was previously at Olswang and has also worked at Allen & Overy, CMS Cameron McKenna and ACCA.

    Terblanche focuses on .......

    Job Swaps 2 July 2014

  • Treasury looks to boost PLS market

    US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew last week outlined plans to expand access to credit by boosting the private-label securities market. A new financing partnership between the Treasury and HUD will also support the FHA's multifamily mortgage risk-sharing programme.

    The Treasury-led effort to catalyse the PLS market is part of encouraging securitisation as a way of shifting risk to investors in .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • Slow start for US ABS

    US ABS bid-list activity was very low to start the holiday-shortened week. SCI's PriceABS data picked up student loan paper from both Sallie Mae and Navient, which spilt off in April.

    ABS BWIC volume for the session was just US$35m according to Interactive Data. Along with the student loan tranches there was also some credit card .......

    Market Reports 1 July 2014

  • Fund adds industry vet

    SCIO Capital has appointed Kevin Flaherty as head of syndicate. He will work closely with co-founders Greg Branch and Saul Greenberg to identify new investment opportunities in European structured credit.

    Flaherty joins the structured credit fund from Trimast Capital, where he was a managing partner. He has also served as head of structured product syndicate for Europe, Asia and Australia .......

    Job Swaps 1 July 2014

  • SLABS delinquencies tick down

    Delinquencies remain stable to slightly lower for US private label student loan ABS. Fitch's latest quarterly index suggests delinquencies could decline further in the coming months.

    There was a very slight decrease in 90- and 120-day delinquencies in the first quarter of the year. Late-pays on for-profit student loan ABS declined to 0.76% in Q1, while late-pays on not-for-profits fell .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • Fund manager purchase completed

    Standard Life Investments has completed its acquisition of Ignis Asset Management for £390m (SCI 26 March). The purchase strengthens Standard Life's investment capabilities, broadens its third-party client base and increases the range of investment solutions it can offer.

    .......

    Job Swaps 1 July 2014

  • OTC clearing guidelines released

    AIMA has launched OTC derivatives clearing guidelines for asset managers. The guide to sound practices provides guidance on the new regulatory framework in the US and EU, which affects most OTC derivatives transactions cleared globally. The guidelines are supplemented by a due diligence questionnaire which is intended to help asset managers to evaluate different clearing members and clearing houses.

    .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • Japanese PPR credit positive

    A record high principal payment rate (PPR) on credit cards in Japan is credit positive, Moody's notes in its latest Structured Thinking: Asia Pacific publication. The rate means securitisations backed by Japanese credit cards have a reduced risk of losses from defaults.

    A high PPR encourages card holders to clear their debt sooner, which shortens credit card ABS maturities and .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • Secured bond defaults rise

    Secured bonds have accounted for a greater portion of the high yield default mix in recent years, says Fitch. Secured bonds have comprised 49% of defaults by par value and 41% by issue count since 2010, compared with just 13% and 12%, respectively, between 2000 and 2009.

    The number of secured bonds in the high yield space soared from 8% .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • DDE criteria expanded

    Fitch has updated its global criteria for determining distressed debt exchanges (DDEs) in structured finance transactions. The criteria relate to whether a transaction or class of notes should be classified as having experienced a DDE.

    The rating agency says key considerations are whether the relevant noteholders will suffer a material reduction in economic terms compared with existing contractual terms and .......

    News Round-up 1 July 2014

  • Cov-lite exposure grows

    US CLO 2.0 managers have not been fully using their cov-lite buckets, says Moody's. However, cov-lite holdings have grown as buckets have expanded since 2010 and cov-lites' share of the leveraged loan universe has also grown.

    CLO managers appear to be using around half of their permitted cov-lite allowance. Cov-lite loan buckets typically constitute 50%-60% of portfolio par in recent .......

    News Round-up 30 June 2014

  • ABS CDO sale lined up

    An auction has been scheduled for Longport Funding II CDO on 21 July. The collateral will only be sold if the sale would result in sale proceeds which - taken with the balance of all eligible investments and cash in the accounts - exceed the auction call redemption amount.

    .......

    News Round-up 30 June 2014

  • CRE CDO auction announced

    An auction has been scheduled for N-Star Real Estate CDO III on 9 July. The auction is being conducted by Wells Fargo in its role as trustee.

    .......

    News Round-up 30 June 2014

  • MBS fraud sentence handed out

    David Higgs, a former md at Credit Suisse, has been sentenced in connection with a scheme to hide more than US$100m in MBS trading losses. He had previously pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation into the losses (SCI 17 April 2013).

    The bonds concerned were subprime RMBS and CMBS and contributed to Credit Suisse taking a .......

    Job Swaps 30 June 2014
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