Complete news archive

  • GSE principal forgiveness ruled out

    FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco has commented on the use of Treasury incentives to forgive principal on underwater borrowers, affirming a preference for forbearance over forgiveness. The announcement effectively rules out any principal forgiveness for GSE loans.

    Among his reasons for ruling out principal forgiveness, DeMarco notes that less than one million of the 11 million underwater borrowers would benefit .......

    News 11 April 2012

  • Portuguese RMBS performance overestimated

    Performance indicators for Portuguese mortgage loans securitised in RMBS transactions are misleading, says Fitch. The agency notes that originating banks' support for borrowers is masking the trust extent of past underperformance.

    House price indices also appear to significantly understate the value declines seen on properties sold under forced circumstances and Fitch believes this is hiding the full extent of future .......

    News Round-up 11 April 2012

  • CMBS concerns over low DSCR

    The US$246m Atrium Hotel Portfolio loan has been put on Morningstar's watchlist because of worryingly low debt service coverage and the expiration of the loan's IO period. The loan is the largest in the ML-CFC 2006-3 transaction and represents 11% of the pool by unpaid balance.

    The debt is secured by fee and leasehold interests in six full service hotels, .......

    News Round-up 11 April 2012

  • London law firm appoints partner

    Prakash Paran has joined DLA Piper's London office as partner in the corporate group and member of the global insurance and reinsurance group. He is the latest in a string of departures from Dewey & LeBoeuf (SCI passim).

    Paran specialises in insurance and ILS. He also has experience in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and corporate reorganisations and was at .......

    Job Swaps 11 April 2012

  • Stable outlook for US card industry

    Moody's outlook for the US credit card industry remains stable, reflecting primarily card issuers' stronger asset quality and profitability in an improved macroeconomic environment.

    "Card issuers' asset quality has improved significantly over the past year on the back of stronger employment numbers, higher monthly payments by cardholders and continued 'portfolio cleansing' by issuers," says Moody's vp Curt Beaudouin. "And we .......

    News Round-up 11 April 2012

  • Vantage enhancements offered

    Interactive Data Corporation has launched Version 2.0 of Vantage, its web application that aims to provide transparency into the fixed income market and the company's evaluated prices. The service now provides coverage for global structured securities and US municipal bonds, and also delivers dozens of enhancements that reflect client feedback from asset managers, mutual funds, insurance companies and accounting firms.

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Eurosail clarifications released

    Issuer notices have been published for a number of Lehman Brothers-related UK RMBS transactions clarifying their positions in relation to claims against the company's estate in respect of various hedging agreements.

    According to European asset-backed analysts at RBS, the issuers fall into three broad groups. First are those that have agreed a stipulated claim, for which payouts could commence as .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Hedge fund intermediary service enhanced

    Gamma Finance has enhanced its offering to include corporate finance services. The move is in response to increasing demand from private equity investors and real asset specialists seeking access to stakes held by hedge funds that have become illiquid.

    When the firm was established in 2009, the hedge fund secondary market was characterised by high net-worth individuals engaging in distressed .......

    Job Swaps 10 April 2012

  • Sino-Forest credit event called

    ISDA's Asia Ex-Japan Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee has resolved that a bankruptcy credit event occurred in respect of Sino-Forest Corporation. An auction will be held in due course to settle outstanding CDS transactions.

    .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Fannie loan level data added

    Lewtan has added Fannie Mae MBS loan level data through a partnership with Knowledge Decision Services, a provider of fixed income research tools. The web-hosted solution, dubbed agency MBS prepayment-on-demand (POD), is widely used across the financial industry, the two firms say.

    POD contains nearly three decades of performance data. Data is available from Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Japanese SF macroeconomic drivers identified

    S&P has identified five key macroeconomic factors that it believes are most relevant to the credit quality of Japanese structured finance securities. These factors are: Japan's unemployment rate; land prices; real GDP; equity returns; and the corporate credit risk premium.

    Excluding CDOs, Japanese structured finance ratings averaged a 0.6-notch decline from January 2009 to December 2011, reflecting the most recent .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • RMBS downgraded on Saxon transfer

    Fitch has downgraded 145 RMBS classes and affirmed one, following the transfer of certain mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) from Saxon Mortgage Services to Ocwen Financial Corporation. At the same time, all classes were removed from negative watch and assigned a negative outlook.

    Of the 145 classes affected, 123 were part of Ocwen's legacy servicing portfolio, nine were part of the .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Sharp drop for CMBS payoffs

    The percentage of US CMBS loans paying off on their balloon date retreated sharply in March, according to Trepp's March Pay Off Report. This dip comes one month after the reading hit its second highest level since December 2008.

    In March, 36.4% of loans reaching their balloon date paid off. Only May 2011 had a lower reading over the last .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • ILS specialist recruited

    Stephen Rooney has joined Mayer Brown in New York as partner and co-leader of the insurance finance group and member of the firm's banking and finance practice. He specialises in ILS and was previously global chair of Dewey & LeBoeuf's structured finance group.

    .......

    Job Swaps 10 April 2012

  • Further MBIA evidence revealed

    Evidence made public yesterday in connection with the MBIA Article 78 action (SCI passim) shows that MBIA executives possessed but withheld from the New York State Insurance Department (NYID) financial projections indicating that MBIA Insurance was insolvent when MBIA asked then-Superintendent Eric Dinallo to approve its 'transformation'. Specifically, MBIA executives concealed from the NYID more than two dozen analyses showing .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • CMBS gaps out on ML3 concerns

    Supply concerns last week drove the first major widening in US CMBS spreads since the beginning of the year. The move follows rising expectations of potential sales from the Maiden Lane III portfolio.

    Generic 2007 LCF and AMs gave up nearly 20bp-30bp over the week to finish Wednesday at 190bp over swaps and 450bp over respectively. The effect was felt .......

    News 10 April 2012

  • Three cat bonds close

    Three catastrophe bonds closed last week. All saw strong investor interest and finished larger than initial size projections.

    Allianz's Blue Danube (SCI 13 March) saw its two tranches reach US$120m each. The class A notes priced at 600bp over the permitted investment yield (six-month Libor minus 32bp) and the class Bs at 1075bp over.

    The series 2012-1 class A and .......

    News 10 April 2012

  • Rehab SLABS liquidity risk warning

    Fitch believes that the increase in rehabilitated student loans in some recent FFELP ABS transactions heightens near-term liquidity risk, despite the US government guarantee on these loans.

    Rehabilitated student loans are those in which the borrower defaults but subsequently makes nine on-time payments during 10 consecutive months. In these situations, the collection costs - up to 18.5% of the outstanding .......

    News Round-up 10 April 2012

  • Japan capital markets team poached

    White & Case has expanded its capital markets practice in Tokyo. Norifusa Hashimoto joins the firm as a local partner along with Seiji Matsuzoe and Aya Kurahashi, who join as counsel and associate, respectively.

    All three join from Allen & Overy, where Hashimoto was partner and co-head of capital markets for Japan. Hashimoto specialises in debt private placements and repackagings, .......

    Job Swaps 5 April 2012

  • Solana delinquency drives CMBS late-pays

    US CMBS late-pays last month rose by 13bp to 8.43% from 8.3% in February, according to Fitch's latest index for the sector. Helping to drive the increase was the continued underperformance of the US$360m Solana loan, now officially classified as 60-days delinquent. Prior to March, overall delinquencies had declined every month after hitting a high water mark of 9.01% in .......

    News Round-up 5 April 2012

  • Florida cat bond marketing

    Goldman Sachs is marketing a US$200m catastrophe bond on behalf of Citizens Property Insurance - Everglades Re. The single tranche hurricane deal has been assigned a preliminary rating of single-B plus by S&P.

    Everglades Re covers ultimate net losses of Citizens from hurricanes in the state of Florida on a per-occurrence basis. Ultimate net loss does not include extra-contractual obligations .......

    News Round-up 5 April 2012
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