Complete news archive

  • Putnam CDO sold

    Credit Suisse has emerged as the successful bidder for the US$690.5m Putnam Structured Products CDO collateral auctioned yesterday by the New York Fed in the latest round of Maiden Lane III sales (SCI 15 May). Citi, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and RBS also participated in the auction.

    The next ML III sale - involving US$1.67bn of .......

    News Round-up 23 May 2012

  • Westin loan mod questioned

    The recent court-approved modification of the Westin Portfolio loan, securitised in JPMCC 2007-C1 and JPMCC 2008-C2, has taken the market by surprise. The modification - which extends the loan by 15 years and slashes its coupon to zero - exposes fresh intricacies of the US bankruptcy code that CMBS investors now face, according to CMBS strategists at Citi.

    They note .......

    News 22 May 2012

  • Citi given RMBS fine

    FINRA has fined Citigroup Global Markets US$3.5m. The fine is for providing inaccurate mortgage performance information, supervisory failures and other violations relating to its subprime RMBS. Citi has neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.

    FINRA says Citi posted data for its RMBS deals that it should have known was inaccurate and which could .......

    Job Swaps 22 May 2012

  • Consultancy adds structured products trio

    SFC Associates has expanded its structured products capabilities with three additions. Chi Lee, Robert Maroney and Chester Spatt each become affiliates.

    Lee specialises in the structuring, pricing and trading of ABS CDOs, CLOs, CMBS and RMBS. He joins from Navigant Consulting and has previously served as head of the ABS derivatives desk at UBS, global structured products vp at Bank .......

    Job Swaps 22 May 2012

  • FHFA strategic plan released

    The FHFA last week released for public comment its strategic plan for 2013-2017. The plan provides more detail on proposals to increase the guarantee fee and create a new securitisation platform.

    The FHFA reiterated in the strategic plan that increasing guarantee fees addresses its twin goals of shrinking the GSEs' footprint in the mortgage finance market and improving the financial .......

    News Round-up 22 May 2012

  • Mixed results for Trups CDOs

    Deferrals for US bank Trups CDOs fell slightly this past month while defaults increased, according to Fitch's latest index results for the sector.

    Deferrals decreased to 15.5% from 15.9%, as of 30 April, while defaults rose to 16.9% from 16.8%. The combined bank default and deferrals within Trups CDOs now stands at 32.4%.

    The movement upward in defaults was driven .......

    News Round-up 22 May 2012

  • Building blocks

    Credit and counterparty risk management practices surveyed

    Derivatives market participants polled by SCI, in partnership with Fitch Solutions, agree that counterparty risk management has increased in importance since the financial crisis. However, sophistication levels with regard to risk management practices still vary widely across institutions.

    An overwhelming majority of respondents to the SCI/Fitch Solutions 2012 Global Credit and Counterparty Risk Survey agreed that managing counterparty risk is .......

    News Analysis 22 May 2012

  • RBC debuts US public covered bond

    RBC recently filed a registration statement with the US SEC for the first public offer of covered bonds in the US. The filing was made in reliance on a no action letter issued by the SEC staff that addresses the conditions under which the covered bonds could be registered. Morrison & Foerster advised the bank on the filing.

    To date, .......

    News Round-up 22 May 2012

  • Citibank spike skews card charge-offs

    US securitised credit card charge-offs rose by 27bp in April to 5.21% from 4.92% the month previously, according to Moody's Credit Card Indices. A significant increase in the charge-off rate of the Citibank trust caused the rise. The increase for Citibank will reverse course in the coming months and Moody's expects the charge-off rate index to resume falling over the .......

    News Round-up 22 May 2012

  • SLABS appeal

    Student loans attractive as uncertainty clears

    The US student loan ABS sector has its fair share of uncertainties to contend with, but the recent conclusion of S&P's FFELP review removes one of them. While political interference is harder to predict and becoming more of an issue, private paper is looking increasingly attractive.

    S&P placed FFELP ABS transactions on negative watch in June last year. Ignoring municipal .......

    News Analysis 21 May 2012

  • SCI Start the Week - 21 May

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

    Pipeline
    It was a fairly busy week for the pipeline, with several new deals appearing. Among them is a US$1.54bn student loan ABS from Sallie Mae (SLM Student Loan Trust 2012-4) and a €560m auto ABS (FCT Autonoria Compartment Autonoria 2012-1). Those deals were joined by a US$150m ILS (Long Point Re III) and a US$270m CMBS (JPMCC 2012-WLDN). Finally, there .......

    News 21 May 2012

  • CMBS loan events updated

    41 new loan events have been added to the SCI CMBS loan events database. These include:

    16/05/2012
    Deal: TITN 2007-2
    Property: MPC A Portfolio
    Balance: €428.53m
    Event: updated value of €388.59m, as of 31/12/11 (decrease of €218.19m from 31/12/10), triggering subordinate lender control valuation event; valuation event occurred due to payment default at maturity
    Description: class F now controlling class

    11/05/2012
    Deal: EURO 25
    Property: Berlin Residential Portfolio
    Balance: .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • Queen Street CLOs transferred

    Indicus Advisors has assigned the investment management rights for the Queen Street CLO I and II transactions to Ares Management. The agreement has received the consent of the controlling class and Moody's confirms the move won't result in ratings downgrades on the notes.

    For information on other CDO manager transfers, see SCI's CDO manager transfer database.

    .......

    Job Swaps 18 May 2012

  • Kerzner question resolved?

    Fitch has commented on the question of whether the extension of the Kerzner International Portfolio loan violated the terms of the COMM 2006-FL12 deal documents (see SCI CMBS loan events database).

    The recent modification of the Kerzner loan included a three-year extension until 9 September 2014. However, the COMM 2006-FL12 servicing agreement contains a clause prohibiting the servicer .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • CRE CDO late-pays inch up

    The slow upward trajectory in late-pays continued this past month for US CRE CDO delinquencies, according to Fitch's latest index results for the sector. Delinquencies rose slightly in April to 13.9% from 13.6% in March.

    New delinquent assets in April consisted of four matured balloon loan interests and two newly credit-impaired CMBS bonds. Offsetting these new delinquencies were nine assets .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • German CMBS losses crystallised

    Fitch reports that five EMEA CMBS loans in its ratings universe suffered a loss during 1Q12, two of which were secured by the German multi-family housing portfolios backed by the bankrupt Level One Group. The three other loans that suffered a loss during the quarter were the Solstice and DT Berlin loans (both securitised in Cornerstone Titan 2007-1) and Agora .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • Specified pool proposal mooted

    SIFMA has responded to the request for comment on FINRA's proposed rule to begin disseminating data for agency MBS traded as specified pools (MBS-SP). The association believes the proposal has the potential to negatively impact participant confidentiality and therefore participant desire to transact in the market.

    The proposal would implement shorter reporting timeframes for MBS-SP (initially two hours, then one .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • Hitting the wall

    Mixed outcomes as Euro CMBS deals reach maturity

    Last month saw another spike in European CMBS maturities as the sector finally reached the much-discussed maturity wall. About €2.3bn matured in April with mixed results, raising concerns ahead of the next spike in a couple of months.

    Around €20bn of European CMBS loans mature this year, with a further €37bn due in 2013. European asset-backed analysts at RBS note .......

    News Analysis 18 May 2012

  • CLO post-reinvestment activity examined

    CLO strategists at RBS have published a report examining the post-reinvestment choices that managers made in 2011. Of the deals in the study that reinvested, most were found to have unusually lenient reinvestment language.

    Based on their transaction database of 260 post-reinvestment CLOs, the RBS strategists found that 41% of managers - representing 106 deals - purchased US$4.4bn of assets .......

    News 18 May 2012

  • Container ABS appetite surging

    The container ABS sector has had an active second quarter. So far, four new deals have hit the market, while secondary trading in pre-crisis, floating-rate transactions picked up during the first two weeks of May.

    Year to date, pre-financial crisis container spreads have tightened by more than 100bp. Spreads on post-crisis deals, meanwhile, have compressed by 50bp-75bp.

    This quarter's new .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012

  • Ambac rehab hearings scheduled

    A hearing in the Rehabilitation Court relating to Ambac Assurance's motion concerning a settlement with the US Internal Revenue Service over the tax treatment of CDS contracts (SCI 28 February) is scheduled for 13 June. Another hearing in the Rehabilitation Court has been scheduled for 4 June, which could see the monoline begin making interim policy claim payments to segregated .......

    News Round-up 18 May 2012
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