Complete news archive

  • First Amendment defence rejected

    Cook County Circuit Judge Mary Anne Mason has denied an S&P motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Illinois Attorney General against the rating agency. The suit was filed in January and alleges that S&P and its parent company, McGraw-Hill, misled investors about the objectivity of S&P's high ratings for RMBS that later defaulted. In her decision, Judge Mason .......

    Job Swaps 13 November 2012

  • Disclosure settlement reached

    JPMorgan has disclosed in its latest quarterly 10-Q filing that an agreement in principle has been reached to settle two US SEC investigations related to MBS offerings. The investigations were in connection with delinquency disclosures for a single transaction and potential claims against Bear Stearns entities, according to a recent Lowenstein Sandler client memo. The latter relates to disclosures concerning .......

    Job Swaps 13 November 2012

  • Loan rating service launched

    Moody's has launched a new rating service for the US loan market, with the introduction of unpublished monitored loan ratings (UMLRs). The product has been developed in response to a growing market need for access to detailed credit analysis, the agency says.

    "The UMLR product provides a definitive analysis that is identical to published ratings, thereby delivering - upon the .......

    News Round-up 13 November 2012

  • Libor litigation rating impact predicted

    Banks will likely be able to absorb any future regulatory fines from the alleged manipulation of Libor within their annual earnings, according to Moody's. However, losses from potential litigation over such manipulation - though highly uncertain and difficult to quantify - could turn out to be much larger than any regulatory fines and would therefore be more likely to have .......

    News Round-up 13 November 2012

  • NY CMBS JV formed

    Greystone has formed Greystone Bassuk Group in a joint venture with The Bassuk Organization. The new group will provide expanded real estate and financial services, including creative debt and equity financing, to CRE clients with multifamily assets across the US.

    Greystone Bassuk Group will combine the national reach and expanded platform of Greystone with The Bassuk Organization's experience and knowledge .......

    Job Swaps 13 November 2012

  • Credit hedge fund adds trio

    400 Capital Management has made key additions to its portfolio management, quantitative analytics and operations teams. Dan Krup, Michael Zang and Steve Hemmes all join in senior roles.

    Krup joins from Western Asset Management as director of asset-backed credit and special situations portfolio management. He will lead the firm's efforts in researching, sourcing and analysing opportunities within consumer and commercial .......

    Job Swaps 13 November 2012

  • Servicer switches support Mexican RMBS

    Investors in 24 Mexican RMBS have replaced the portfolio servicers on the deals to ensure stable collection management and reporting, after the firms' operational abilities were affected by the recent downturn. The replacement process presented both a challenge and a business opportunity, according to S&P.

    "Replacing a servicer in a securitisation can be complicated in any jurisdiction, given the layers .......

    News Round-up 12 November 2012

  • Kildare makes UK expansion

    Kildare Capital has founded Kildare Capital (UK), an FSA-registered firm with a full-service ABS trading desk which will focus on student loan ABS. Francesco Paolo Bellopede will serve as director of compliance and operations in London.

    .......

    Job Swaps 12 November 2012

  • More credit watches resolved

    S&P has lowered its ratings on 587 classes from 177 US RMBS and removed 277 of them from credit watch with negative implications, 34 of them from credit watch with developing implications and one of them from credit watch with positive implications. The agency has also raised its ratings on 41 classes from 19 transactions and removed 19 of them .......

    News Round-up 12 November 2012

  • Basel 3 implementation delayed

    In light of the volume of comments received following the release of three notices of proposed rulemaking in connection with regulatory capital, the Fed, FDIC and OCC have stated that they do not expect any of the proposed rules to become effective on 1 January 2013. The proposals suggested this date as an effective date for the regulations, but many .......

    News Round-up 12 November 2012

  • Redwood preps CRE CDO

    Redwood Commercial Mortgage Corporation (RCMC), a Redwood Trust subsidiary, is in the market with a static cashflow CRE CDO. Dubbed RCMC 2012-CREL 1, the US$291.1m deal is backed by 30 subordinate commercial real estate assets secured by 76 underlying properties.

    The portfolio comprises 24 mezzanine loans (accounting for 87.9% of the pool), four preferred equity interests (6.8%), one CMBS rake .......

    News Round-up 12 November 2012

  • REIT subsidiary acquisition mooted

    Annaly Capital Management has proposed to acquire all the shares of CreXus Investment Corp that it does not already own. CreXus has approximately 76,630,528 shares of common stock outstanding, of which Annaly holds 9,527,778 (or 12.4%).

    Annaly proposes to acquire the shares for US$12.50 each, representing a 13% premium to CreXus' last reported share price. The proposal is subject to .......

    Job Swaps 12 November 2012

  • Firms in OTC derivative valuations partnership

    SIX Financial Information has teamed up with Numerix to produce OTC derivative valuations. Valuations for a wide range of vanilla and OTC derivative instruments will be available as part of the new evaluated pricing service.

    The first phase of the partnership has already been developed and includes CDS and interest rate swaps. Additional asset classes will be added over the .......

    Job Swaps 12 November 2012

  • SCI Start the Week - 12 November

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

    Pipeline
    Many of the deals that joined the pipeline last week went on to price soon after, but a couple remained come the end of the week. These consisted of a UK auto ABS (£301m Turbo Finance 3) and one CMBS (US$568m BBUBS Trust 2012-TFT).

    Pricings
    Issuance last week was heavily skewed towards ABS. Eight ABS deals, three CLOs, two RMBS and .......

    News 12 November 2012

  • Starwood launches European debt platform

    Starwood Capital Group has formed Starwood European Finance Company (StarFin), a European real estate finance platform. StarFin exists to take advantage of financing opportunities arising from property owners needing to refinance existing loans that are maturing and ongoing demand for new real estate debt capital which is no longer widely available from the banking system.

    Cushman & Wakefield will be .......

    Job Swaps 12 November 2012

  • Manager adds to risk, operations teams

    Twelve Capital has appointed Andrew Townend as partner and Bruno Müller as coo. The hires will strengthen the ILS investment manager's risk analysis capabilities and operations management.

    Townend takes responsibility for credit assessment of companies issuing bonds with potential for inclusion in Twelve Capital's funds and portfolio management of those funds. He joins from Swiss Re, where he managed credit .......

    Job Swaps 12 November 2012

  • Dodd-Frank extraterritoriality examined

    Celent has released a report on the implications of the Dodd-Frank Act for non-US firms. The report notes that the impact on foreign banks will be "widespread and long-lasting", altering trading strategies and operations for most of the large swap trading firms globally.

    Firms which engage in swap trading with US persons will have to adhere to Dodd-Frank. The CFTC .......

    News Round-up 9 November 2012

  • SEC alleges RMBS fraud

    The US SEC has charged Walter Morales and his firm Commonwealth Advisors with defrauding investors over millions of dollars in losses from RMBS investments. The investigation is on-going.

    The SEC alleges that Morales and Commonwealth sold RMBS into Collybus CDO during the financial crisis at prices which were four months out of date, knowing the market had declined in the .......

    News Round-up 9 November 2012

  • CMBS loan payoffs stay elevated

    The percentage of US CMBS loans paying off at maturity remained elevated last month. Trepp says 60.7% of loans reaching their balloon date paid off, over seven points down on September's level but still higher than normal.

    The October total of 60.7% of loans by balance paying off was more than 16 points above the 12-month average of 44.3%. By .......

    News Round-up 9 November 2012

  • More mixed news for SLABS

    The US Department of Education issued final regulations last week to help more financially distressed federal student loan borrowers lower their monthly payments. Moody's believes these changes are positive for private student loan securitisations but mixed for FFELP.

    The final rule makes it easier for FFELP and Direct Loan borrowers to apply for the current income-based repayment plan (IBR) and .......

    News Round-up 9 November 2012

  • India SF delinquencies to rise

    Fitch predicts a rise in delinquencies in portfolios backing Indian structured finance transactions as a result of recent floods in the Andhra Pradesh region. The floods are expected to disrupt loan collections in affected districts and impact borrowers' ability to repay.

    The agency believes Indian SF transactions are generally resilient due to sufficient credit enhancement that has been built up .......

    News Round-up 8 November 2012
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