Complete news archive

  • 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

  • Innovative whole business deal prices

    Center Parcs has priced its £1.2bn whole business securitisation, CPUK Finance. The transaction has a number of noteworthy features.

    Rated by Fitch and S&P, CPUK Finance comprises two tranches of triple-B notes. The £300m five-year class A1 notes printed at 390bp over Gilts, while the £440m 12-year class A2s came at 465bp over. The deal was arranged by Barclays Capital, .......

    News Round-up 20 February 2012

  • Bank boosts SF team

    Neil Kindness has joined Aldermore's structured finance team as associate director. He now reports to Ian Flaxman, head of structured finance, and will be responsible for negotiating deals in London and Scotland.

    Kindness joins the bank from Close Invoice Finance where he was regional sales director for Scotland. He has previously held positions within Landsbanki Commercial Finance, GE Commercial Finance .......

    Job Swaps 20 February 2012

  • SCI Start the Week - 20 February

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

    Pipeline
    It has been another busy week for the pipeline, with six new deals remaining on Friday. Two auto ABS (R$930m Driver Brasil One FIDC and €92.3m TruckLease Compartment No 2), two cell tower CMBS (US$107m GTP Cellular Sites series 2012-1 and US$175m series 2012-2), another CMBS (US$1.2bn Morgan Stanley Capital I Trust 2012-C4), one CLO (€1.44bn IM Cajamar Empresas 4) .......

    News 20 February 2012

  • Tranche recovery metrics completed

    S&P has completed its framework for estimating recoveries on tranched corporate credit default swap indices. The set of supplementary analytics, called synthetic tranche recovery metrics (STRM), is intended to provide S&P's view of what publicly traded CDS indices may recover under varying economic environments. The agency says it will use these supplementary analytics to provide recovery estimates on an aggregate .......

    News Round-up 20 February 2012

  • Chilean RMBS criteria enhanced

    Fitch has updated its rating methodology for assessing credit risk in Chilean residential mortgage loan pools that back RMBS. The main changes focus on a more forward-looking approach, increased market value decline (MVD) assumptions, increased expected foreclosure frequency and adjustments for specific product and borrower characteristics.

    In particular, the updated criteria place an emphasis on Fitch's performance expectations, especially at .......

    News Round-up 20 February 2012

  • Sovereign-linked ratings hit

    Moody's has downgraded the ratings of structured finance securities that are directly linked to the ratings of Italy and Spain, which the agency downgraded on 13 February. At the same time, it has placed on review for downgrade structured finance securities that are directly linked to the ratings of certain European and US banks, which were placed under review on .......

    News Round-up 20 February 2012

  • From top to bottom

    Attractive opportunities seen across asset classes

    A more 'risk-on' attitude has been evident across the securitisation markets recently, despite the sector facing many of the same headwinds this year as in 2011. While the sovereign debt crisis might mean that certain jurisdictions are off-limits for the foreseeable future, European ABS on the whole still presents compelling opportunities.

    Schroders senior portfolio manager Chris Ames, for one, repositioned .......

    News Analysis 17 February 2012

  • CRE CDO concentration risk highlighted

    US CRE CDO delinquencies began the year higher primarily due to maturity defaults, according to Fitch's latest index results.

    CRE CDO late-pays rose in January to 13.2% from 12.5% in December 2011, with asset managers reporting 16 new delinquent assets during the month. While Fitch's analysis already takes into account expected losses and potential future increases in delinquencies, ratings on .......

    News Round-up 17 February 2012

  • State Street preps SEF

    State Street Corporation has launched a swap execution facility (SEF), dubbed SwapEx. The firm says the service will provides the first step in a global end-to-end solution that reduces operational risk through the automation of the many stages of derivatives processing - including execution, clearing, collateral management, risk reporting, valuations and the reconciliation of positions.

    State Street plans to file .......

    News Round-up 17 February 2012

  • Balancing act

    Relative merits of covered bonds versus RMBS discussed

    Interest in covered bonds continues to grow, partly due to favourable regulatory treatment. However, panellists at a recent covered bond seminar hosted by S&P highlighted the potential dangers of over-promoting the instruments at the expense of other asset classes, such as RMBS.

    Neil Calder, head of investments - credit, treasury at the EBRD, noted during the seminar that RMBS transactions .......

    Talking Point 17 February 2012

  • CMBS ETF launched

    Blackrock's iShares has launched an exchange-traded fund referencing the Barclays Capital US CMBS (ERISA Only) Index. Should the product grow significantly from its initial size of US$7.4m, it could prove a useful addition to the array of trading instruments available to CMBS investors.

    Blackrock says the iShares Barclays CMBS Bond Fund is the first ETF to provide exposure to investment .......

    News 17 February 2012

  • Credit hedge fund in US partnership

    LNG Capital has agreed a partnership with Palmer Square Capital Management, Montage Investments and Atlantic Asset Management. The long/short European credit firm, based in London, gains investment capital and access to Montage and Atlantic's distribution channels.

    The relationship with Palmer Square will improve LNG's ability to offer US investors the opportunity to invest in the European credit markets. Christopher Long, .......

    Job Swaps 17 February 2012

  • Ratings ceilings lowered, on review

    Moody's has lowered the highest achievable structured finance rating in Italy and Spain to Aa2 from Aaa, and in Portugal to Baa1 from A2. The rating action was prompted by the downgrade of the sovereigns on 13 February.

    Moody's decision to lower the highest achievable structured finance rating will likely impact all outstanding Italian and Spanish tranches currently rated above .......

    News Round-up 17 February 2012

  • Special servicer fee warning

    Fitch has warned that the trend for some special servicers charging fees for loan modifications potentially presents risk to bondholders, borrowers and the recovering CMBS market. The agency's concern is not so much the size of any fee that a borrower pays, but the philosophy of the fee itself - it argues that special servicers have a fiduciary duty to .......

    News Round-up 17 February 2012

  • CMBS rally stalls

    The strong rally in the US CMBS market has eased off over the last two weeks. Trading is currently concentrated around AM and AJ tranches, with activity expected to pick up again in the near future.

    "The CMBS market has changed a lot over the last week or so. There have not been any large block trades and activity has .......

    Market Reports 16 February 2012

  • Loan extension 'test' due

    UPC's request for lenders to respond to its proposed TLS debt maturity extension ends today. The move is being seen as a test of CLO managers' attitudes towards loan extensions with no margin pick-up.

    UPC - the largest obligor in the European CLO universe - is proposing to extend the TLS, which currently matures in December 2016, by three years .......

    News Round-up 16 February 2012

  • Trading platform adds sales head

    MarketAxess Holdings has appointed Robert Hammond as head of sales and dealer relationship management for Europe and the Middle East. He will report to Paul Ellis, head of MarketAxess Europe.

    Hammond will be responsible for driving sales and building the firm's institutional network of fixed income investors and dealers. He joins from CME Group, where he was head of listed .......

    Job Swaps 16 February 2012

  • ILS chief to head US operations

    Liz Frederick has been made md of Kane (USA), effective from March. Frederick is currently global practice head for Kane's ILS business and will continue to perform this role in tandem with running US operations.

    Frederick is currently based in the Cayman Islands. She has extensive experience in the structuring and management of a range of ILS and captive structures, .......

    Job Swaps 16 February 2012

  • CLO resiliency keeps equity attractive

    RBS analysts have run a series of scenarios to investigate the impact of another credit cycle similar to the one seen in 2008-2011. They find CLOs to be highly resilient during periods of high defaults and advocate investing as far down the capital stack as possible.

    The analysts put 370 US CLO deals from 2005-2007 vintages through three scenarios: a .......

    News 16 February 2012

  • BoE RMBS loan tapes analysed

    UK RMBS issuers began providing loan-level data and cashflow models to investors - as required by the Bank of England (SCI 31 October 2011) - in November. JPMorgan ABS strategists have analysed the loan tapes, with the aim of providing a broader overview of performance trends in the sector, and find that they offer additional clarity into the master trusts.

    News 16 February 2012

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