Complete news archive

  • Momentum builds

    Asian issuers look to emulate Aussie covered bond success

    Momentum in the Asia-Pacific covered bond sector is building. While the implementation of new legislation in Australia has triggered significant issuance from that jurisdiction, activity in South Korea and Singapore is expected to materialise within the next few months.

    "Almost every Korean bank is looking to do a covered bond," says Warren Lee, global head of structured finance solutions at .......

    News Analysis 23 February 2012

  • Final IO methodology released

    Moody's has published its rating methodology for structured finance interest-only (IO) securities, following its initial request for comment last November (SCI 23 November). The agency is set to downgrade, upgrade or affirm the ratings of some IO bonds and place others on review, as a result.

    The ratings framework applies to IO securities on US RMBS, US and European CMBS, .......

    News Round-up 22 February 2012

  • GSE strategic plan disappoints

    FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco yesterday sent Congress a strategic plan for the next phase of the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, it appears not to be the concrete plan of action that some were hoping for.

    The FHFA plan builds on DeMarco's February 2010 letter to Congress on the conservatorships and sets forth objectives and steps .......

    News 22 February 2012

  • East Lane Re V marketing

    The fifth catastrophe bond from Chubb's East Lane programme has begun marketing. The four-year two tranche deal covers losses from hurricanes and severe thunderstorms in the covered area on a per occurrence basis.

    East Lane Re V's series 2012 class A and class B notes are initially targeting US$75m and US$50m, respectively. S&P has given the class As a preliminary .......

    News Round-up 22 February 2012

  • Knight grows mortgage credit team

    Knight Capital has hired several former MF Global mortgage credit sales and trading personnel in part of an effort to grow its structured products business. The arrivals boost Knight's existing mortgage credit team and further hires are expected soon.

    Michael Corsi joins as mortgage sales md and Rus Margolin joins as non-agency trading md. Miguel Vazquez and Doug Adelman both .......

    Job Swaps 22 February 2012

  • Purchase to create CRE 'powerhouse'

    Grubb & Ellis has agreed to sell substantially all of its assets to BGC Partners. The acquisition will bring Grubb & Ellis the enhanced scale and resources it has been seeking since it began looking for a buyer almost a year ago (see SCI 23 March 2011).

    "Following a thorough and rigorous process and the evaluation of all available options, we .......

    Job Swaps 22 February 2012

  • Further Italian, Spanish rating actions taken

    Moody's has taken further rating action on structured finance deals exposed to assets located in Italy and Spain, following the lowering of the highest achievable structured finance ratings in the jurisdictions (SCI 20 February). The agency has downgraded the ratings of 478 notes and placed on review for downgrade the ratings on five notes from across 387 structured finance transactions.

    News Round-up 22 February 2012

  • ABS CDO cuts likely on criteria change

    S&P has revised its methodologies and assumptions for rating global ABS CDOs. The agency says the move represents a significant recalibration of its CDO criteria and is designed to enhance the comparability of CDO ratings with ratings in other sectors. These criteria apply to all new and existing cashflow, synthetic and hybrid CDOs backed by pools of structured finance assets .......

    News Round-up 22 February 2012

  • ABS disclosure principles released

    IOSCO's Technical Committee has published a consultation report containing principles designed to provide guidance to securities regulators that are developing or reviewing their regulatory regimes for ongoing ABS disclosure. Dubbed the 'ABS Ongoing Disclosure Principles', the objective is to enhance investor protection by facilitating a better understanding of the issues that should be considered by regulators in developing or reviewing .......

    News Round-up 22 February 2012

  • New arrival to build structured credit team

    Nicolas Boutar has joined Dinosaur Securities as structured credit sales director. He is responsible for setting up Dinosaur's structured credit team in the CEEMEA region and organising bids or offers on CLOs and CSOs.

    Boutar joins from BNP Paribas and is based in London. As well as serving as a credit structurer and portfolio manager at BNP Paribas, he has .......

    Job Swaps 22 February 2012

  • Distressed specialist recruited

    Bertrand Fry has joined Pryor Cashman's investment management group. He becomes co-head of the group alongside Jonathan Shepard.

    Fry's practice focuses on structuring private investment funds and counselling fund managers. He specialises in distressed, venture capital and real estate investing, debt origination and quantitative trading of securities.

    Fry joins from D.E. Shaw, where he was svp and served for a .......

    Job Swaps 22 February 2012

  • CMBS LFM risk identified

    European asset-backed analysts at RBS have identified another European CMBS that is at risk of not paying off at legal maturity in April 2013, following the default of Opera Finance (Uni-Invest) last week. However, the likelihood of other deals defaulting at legal final beyond that date appears harder to predict.

    The convention in European CMBS has been to set legal .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • Lebanese auto deals closed

    BSEC - Bemo Securitisation recently closed two Lebanese securitisations. The transactions will finance the business growth of two local companies, both operating in the auto sector.

    The first deal - dubbed Gear 1 SIF - is a true sale operating lease securitisation arranged on behalf of MECAR/Avis Lebanon. It comprises two classes of notes: class As that have an expected .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • DQT dips by 2bp

    The delinquency rate on loans included in US CMBS conduit/fusion transactions slipped by 2bp in January to 9.3%, according to Moody's Delinquency Tracker (DQT). The rate of loans in special servicing, as measured by Moody's Specially Serviced Loan Tracker, increased by 1bp in January to 11.98%.

    January was the 13th consecutive month that delinquencies in the US have been above .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • Langton restructured

    The Langton UK RMBS master trust has been restructured. Under the restructuring, Santander has: repurchased around £18bn of trust collateral; repaid £18.4bn of triple-A rated notes and £3.5bn of unrated Z notes outstanding under the Langton Securities 2008-1 and 2010-1 issuers; and reduced the size of the shared funding reserve fund from £43m to £20.5m. Additionally, the Langton Securities 2008-1 .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • MBS team boosted

    The PrinceRidge Group has made two additions to its RMBS division. Kate Lee joins from BNP Paribas and Jason Huey joins from Nomura. Both Lee and Huey will report to RMBS head Barry Berkeley.

    Lee joins as a director. She will lead the firm's new issue CMO effort and will also trade mortgage derivatives. Huey joins as a director and .......

    Job Swaps 21 February 2012

  • NY law firm hires auto ABS specialist

    Christopher Horn has joined Baker & McKenzie as a partner in the firm's New York office. He was most recently a partner at Mayer Brown.

    Horn represents both issuers and underwriters on structured finance transactions and specialises in the securitisation of auto receivables. He also has considerable experience in ILS, including catastrophe risk bonds and life insurance reserve funding facilities.

    .......

    Job Swaps 21 February 2012

  • Euro downgrade severity improves

    The European structured finance upgrade rate rose and the downgrade rate fell for the second consecutive year in 2011, according to S&P's latest transition study.

    "The overall downgrade rate decreased to 22.3% in 2011 from 25.4% in 2010, as most countries saw a revival in economic growth over much of the year," says S&P credit analyst Mark Boyce. "The upgrade .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • Derivatives reporting solution minted

    Lombard Risk Management has launched its Dodd-Frank Act Engine service, which aims to address Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act - concerning the reporting of swap data throughout the lifecycle of the trade. The offering is a rules-based, workflow technology and software solution that meets both real-time and event-driven reporting to the regulators, automatically collating and mapping reportable data from .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • Keops liquidation progresses

    An update on the progress of the liquidation of the Keops portfolio, securitised in Juno (Eclipse 2007-2), has been released. A total of 147 properties have been sold for a price of Skr4.103bn, compared to a gross valuation of Skr4.242bn.

    The latest set of sales of 128 properties has been completed, with proceeds received for all of them. A contract .......

    News Round-up 21 February 2012

  • Credit manager hires for US expansion

    Muzinich has made two senior appointments to its New York office. Mike McEachern joins as senior investment officer and Sam Zona joins as director of business development for North America.

    McEachern joins from Seix Investment Advisers, where he was president and head of the high yield team. He has previously worked for American General Corporation and Capital Holding Corp.

    Zona .......

    Job Swaps 21 February 2012
×