Complete news archive

  • Bank beefs up West Coast CMBS team

    John Boyt and Joshua Greene have joined Barclays' CMBS finance team in Los Angeles as director and vp, respectively. They will expand the bank's focus on CRE lending opportunities in the Western US.

    Before joining Barclays both Boyt and Greene were operating under an exclusive joint venture with the bank to originate loans for CMBS. Boyt has previously worked for .......

    Job Swaps 29 July 2013

  • Covered bond framework proposed

    The US House Financial Services Committee last week approved a bill that includes a legislative framework for the issuance of US covered bonds, which Moody's says will address a major credit weakness in the current framework and help spur growth in the domestic covered bond market. Currently, if a bank fails, the FDIC can repudiate covered bonds and pay damages .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • US housing recovery impact analysed

    The US housing recovery will help to cut losses on RMBS mortgage pools in existing transactions, but will lead to the inclusion of riskier loans in new transactions, Moody's says. Home price and LTV improvements will not be uniform across markets because of regional differences in job growth, demographics, affordability and supply.

    Rising home prices will reduce defaults through lower .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • Euro RMBS hit by counterparty downgrades

    S&P has downgraded 181 tranches in 62 European RMBS transactions, following the lowering of its long-term issuer credit ratings (ICRs) on Barclays Bank, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. The replacement frameworks in the affected transactions no longer comply with the agency's counterparty criteria for the relevant counterparty roles.

    Specifically, S&P has: lowered to single-A from single-A plus its ratings on .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • Euro house prices to keep falling

    S&P anticipates that house prices will keep falling in most European markets this year, as the recession takes its toll on employment and cuts consumer confidence. Some countries are suffering harsher market declines than others, while a few are already in recovery mode.

    "Spain's housing market is still experiencing the sharpest slump," says S&P economist Sophie Tahiri. "We forecast that .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • Avoca adds to its board

    Avoca Capital Holdings has named James Blyth as a non-executive director. He was formerly chairman of Diageo, a position he held for eight years to June 2008, and before that was chief executive and then chairman of The Boots Company. He remains a non-executive director of Anixter Inc and a senior advisor to Greenhill & Co.

    Blyth joins Darren Carter .......

    Job Swaps 29 July 2013

  • Secondary infrastructure fund launched

    Aviva Investors has launched the European Secondary Infrastructure Credit Securitisation Vehicle (SV). The SV is the issuer of profit participating notes backed by a portfolio of infrastructure debt.

    The initial issue of €425m has been subscribed to by three European insurance companies, including Aviva France. The investment strategy is to acquire bank loans in the secondary market, complemented by selective .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • CMBS default rate slowing

    The rate of cumulative US CMBS defaults slowed again last quarter, while the size of newly defaulted loans continues to decrease, according to Fitch.

    The cumulative default rate for fixed-rate CMBS increased by only 10bp in 2Q13 to 13.7%, compared to an 18bp rise at the end 1Q13 from year-end 2012. Cumulative CMBS defaults are on track to finish lower .......

    News Round-up 29 July 2013

  • SCI Start the Week - 29 July

    A look at the major activity in structured finance over the past seven days

    Pipeline
    By the end of a relatively busy week for new issuance, only four transactions remained in the pipeline on Friday - two CMBS, and RMBS and a CLO. The CMBS are US$1.69bn FREMF 2013-K30 and US$200m STWD 2013-FV1 Mortgage Trust. The RMBS is US$400.67m Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2013-10, while the CLO is US$400m Sound Point CLO III.

    Pricings
    Auto ABS and .......

    News 29 July 2013

  • Further forbearance amounts disclosed

    Carrington Mortgage Services has disclosed that it has outstanding principal forbearance amounts not reported as losses among the various RMBS trusts it services. The firm was among the group of US RMBS servicers who indicated to Fitch that they have no outstanding principal forbearance modification amounts that have not already been reported as losses in a recent survey undertaken by .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Stable performance for LBUBS 07-C2?

    LBUBS 2007-C2 is tipped for stable performance in the near-term, following Orix Capital Markets' mass liquidation of 21 distressed loans totalling US$773m backing the CMBS (SCI 18 July). US$311m in losses were realised in the July 2013 remittance period as a result of the liquidations.

    Prior to the auction, interest shortfalls totalled US$43.6m and impacted ten active classes (AJ through .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Stranded asset deals due

    New legislation in New York and Hawaii will spur new issuance of bonds backed by utility cost recovery charges (UCRC), Moody's reports. Pending legislation to reorganise the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) sets a legal framework and standards for the issuance of UCRC bonds to refinance LIPA's outstanding debt at lower interest rates, while a similar securitisation law went into .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Losses to hit senior NCSLT tranches

    The junior-most outstanding class A tranches in six National Collegiate Student Loan Trust securitisations will incur losses due to low parity ratios and low excess spread, according to a break-even default analysis conducted by Moody's. Three other transactions are already lacking the collateral base necessary to repay the junior-most class A notes.

    Based on the analysis, the lifetime default levels .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Euro CMBS gaining ground

    European CMBS appears to be slowly gaining some traction after a quiet period. Trading levels are steady, with buyers starting to return to the market.

    "It has been a little quiet lately, but that might now be changing. We are starting to see a bit more activity and I think things are going to slowly start trading up," reports one .......

    Market Reports 26 July 2013

  • NJM closes debut cat bond

    Towers Watson Capital Markets has arranged an inaugural private placement catastrophe bond - the US$60m Sullivan Re 2013-1 - for the New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Group. With a three-year maturity, the transaction contains a single layer of the cedant's risk management programme and will provide per-occurrence indemnity-based reinsurance coverage for the firm's New Jersey and Pennsylvania marketing territories.

    "The ILS .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Stress testing tool strengthened

    Moody's Analytics has released an enhanced version of RiskCalc Plus, its private-firm probability of default model for credit risk management. New features include stress testing models for the US, ratio-driven global banking models for assessing financial institutions and a qualitative overlay module that combines the quantitative probability of default measure from RiskCalc with qualitative risk drivers into a single measure.

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • Low Euro CMBS loan repayments forecast

    European CMBS loan repayment rates dropped to 25% in 2Q13 and will remain low in 3Q13, Moody's predicts in a new special comment. The 24 loans - totalling €2.6bn - with scheduled original maturity dates in 2Q13 had a low repayment rate, as signalled by both the higher Moody's LTV ratios and lower Moody's debt yield projected for these loans .......

    News Round-up 26 July 2013

  • ILS investment management firm formed

    XL Group and Stone Point Capital have formed a new Bermuda-based company to invest in ILS and other reinsurance capital markets products. The company's focus will also include certain XL-designed reinsurance products.

    XL takes a 75% stake in the company, with Stone Point funds holding the other 25%. The parties intend to invest up to an aggregate of US$135m in .......

    Job Swaps 26 July 2013

  • Trading leadership pair poached

    AK Capital has appointed Michael Glover and Craig Bonder to its structured products team in New York. Glover now leads the group, while Bonder serves as md.

    The pair were co-heads of fixed income trading at Rochdale Securities, where Bonder was also head of ILS trading. Before that Glover was at Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan and Kidder Peabody, while Bonder worked .......

    Job Swaps 26 July 2013

  • Structured debt specialist brought in

    Edward Dale has joined Highbridge Capital as svp in New York. He is a member of the large cap loan team focussed on CLOs.

    Dale was previously at Mead Park Management and has also served as head of structuring and capital markets at Bridger Commercial Funding. Before that he had stints at Navesink Advisory, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Escatena and the .......

    Job Swaps 26 July 2013

  • Cross-asset movement

    Rising rates rearrange relative value

    Rising interest rates in the wake of the Fed's tapering proposal have profoundly affected cross-asset relative value. While investors may consequently choose to move down the capital structure within CLOs, interest in CMBS is also expected to increase.

    US CLO triple-A spreads have not moved much recently as three-month Libor has been largely steady. Movement has been much more dramatic .......

    News Analysis 26 July 2013
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