Complete news archive

  • Refi plan fleshed out

    President Obama has provided more detail on his plan to help spur mortgage refinancing, following last week's State of the Union address (SCI 25 January). Most elements of the initiative are likely to either require Congressional approval or the FHFA to revisit the work that went into developing HARP 2.

    The President's plan would introduce a HARP-like refinancing option for .......

    News Round-up 2 February 2012

  • Ex-Credit Suisse bankers charged with fraud

    The US SEC has charged four former Credit Suisse investment bankers for engaging in a complex scheme to fraudulently overstate the prices of US$3bn in subprime bonds during the height of the subprime credit crisis.

    The SEC alleges that Credit Suisse's former global head of structured credit trading Kareem Serageldin and former head of hedge trading David Higgs, along with .......

    News Round-up 2 February 2012

  • CMBS loan liquidations spike again

    The volume of CMBS conduit loans liquidated in January spiked sharply, jumping 51% from December's reading, according to Trepp. In fact, the January reading was the third highest total since the firm began tracking this number in January 2010.

    At US$1.58bn, liquidations were about 21% above the 12 month moving average of US$1.3bn per month. Since the beginning of 2010, .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • Real estate vet joins advisory

    Robin Priest has joined Alvarez & Marsal Real Estate Advisory Services in London as a senior adviser. He brings more than 30 years of experience in real estate and structured finance to the firm. His primary focus will be working with European real estate clients in connection with challenging and complex assets, portfolios or businesses.

    Prior to joining A&M, Priest .......

    Job Swaps 1 February 2012

  • Alliance SAFD-PJ plan surprises to the upside

    The latest documents released as part of PJ Alliance's bankruptcy filing reveal a new reorganisation plan, which is expected to be reflected in a modification of the US$475m Alliance SAFD-PJ portfolio loan securitised in CSMC 2007-C2. Although concessions to the sponsors under the proposal appear high, if the hypothetical liquidation analysis truly reflects market conditions, the modification should result in .......

    News 1 February 2012

  • SEF regulatory alliance agreed

    National Futures Association (NFA) and MarketAxess Holdings have entered into an agreement that paves the way for NFA to perform regulatory services for MarketAxess' planned swap execution facility. The agreement establishes a preliminary framework for the exchange of information and the development of technology standards that will enable the pair to develop, test and launch automated trade practice and surveillance .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • Granite milestone hit as sentiment improves

    The latest Granite UK RMBS investor report shows that the master trust passed a minor milestone in December, by finally completing the top-up of reserve funds to their increased levels following the breach of the arrears and step-up triggers. The completion of this process underscores the improvements in cashflow performance that have been seen over the past year.

    Credit performance .......

    News 1 February 2012

  • CMBS workouts driving maturity outcomes

    Fitch reports that European CMBS loan workouts have become more prevalent as the majority of loans that were due to mature in January 2012 remain outstanding. The total number of loans being worked out due to maturity default increased threefold during the past month, to 55 loans from 40 loans, the agency notes.

    Only three loans that were originally scheduled .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • Counterparty review hits Euro CMBS

    S&P has placed on credit watch negative its ratings on 122 tranches in 65 European CMBS transactions. The move follows the rating actions the agency took on banks on 29 November 2011, following the application of its revised bank criteria. Many of the CMBS that S&P rates have exposure to one or more of the banks affected by these rating .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • MBS fails charge becomes effective

    The agency debt and agency MBS fails charge trading practice recommended by the Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG) becomes effective today (SCI passim). Under the trading practice, a party who fails to deliver securities in a timely manner will incur a charge.

    The NY Fed says it will adopt these practices in its own operations and strongly encourages all market .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • Mid-market firm forms SF group

    CoBiz Financial has formed CoBiz Structured Finance, which will provide asset-based loans to middle market businesses. Chris Randall - previously a co-founder, board member and coo of MFC Capital Funding in Chicago - will lead the group.

    "The lower middle market for leveraged loans is currently underserved by the banking industry in our markets," comments Jonathan Lorenz, ceo of Colorado .......

    Job Swaps 1 February 2012

  • Warehouse conflicts of interest raised

    Securities Litigation and Consulting Group has released a study on CLOs issued in July and August 2007. The report purportedly identifies conflicts of interest created when investment banks warehouse loans prior to the issuance of CLOs.

    In particular, the study finds that banks could use warehousing as part of a trade allocation scheme and that warehousing appears to have resulted .......

    News Round-up 1 February 2012

  • Boutique adds SF division

    The Williams Capital Group has added a new division to address structured finance opportunities for corporate, federal, state and local government clients. The Eland Capital division is led by William Lighten.

    Lighten has over 20 years of industry experience, including roles as global head of structured finance and global head of mortgage capital at Lehman Brothers. He is joined by .......

    Job Swaps 31 January 2012

  • Ibis Re closes upsized

    Assurant's Ibis Re II series 2012-1 (SCI 18 January 2012) US hurricane catastrophe bond has closed. The deal's class A notes were upsized to US$100m from an initial US$70m, while the class Bs came in as expected at US$30m.

    The class A notes priced at 835bp over Treasury money market funds and the class Bs at 1350bp over. S&P rated .......

    News Round-up 31 January 2012

  • Risk firms team up

    Orchestrade Financial Systems and Numerix have announced a partnership to offer integrated access to pricing and risk analytics from Numerix within the Orchestrade trading and risk platform. It enables clients to manage risk and operations on a single platform.

    Orchestrade clients can now leverage the full suite of Numerix models to price newly structured products and generate yield curves or .......

    Job Swaps 31 January 2012

  • Windermere XII warning

    Fitch says that the recent decision by the Versailles court of appeal to uphold the initial 'sauvegarde' protection granted to the borrower - a non-FCT SPV - and its parent behind the loan backing the Windermere XII CMBS is currently reflected in the transaction's ratings.

    The latest ruling is the most recent in a series of court rulings that began .......

    News Round-up 31 January 2012

  • PM, credit fund relocate

    Alex Vaskevitch has joined Serone Capital Management as partner. He brings his Zenith High Yield Bond Fund with him and will primarily be responsible for managing the firm's liquid investments and building up the high yield research and execution team.

    The Zenith fund focuses on investment opportunities in the European high yield corporate bond market, allocating to both sub-investment grade .......

    Job Swaps 31 January 2012

  • Portfolio margining benefits offered

    ICE Clear Credit has begun offering portfolio margining benefits for clearing participants' proprietary positions, allowing for more efficient collateralisation of opposite positions in index and correlated single name credit default swaps. ICE has received approval for clearing participant portfolio margining from the SEC and is self-certified with the CFTC.

    "The ability to margin accounts on a consolidated portfolio basis is .......

    News Round-up 31 January 2012

  • Legal team poached

    A group of five attorneys has left Burns White to join Dinsmore in a newly-opened Pennsylvania office. All five attorneys are experienced in CRE and CMBS.

    Rich O'Halloran was previously chair of Burns White's business practices group and will serve as the office managing partner at Dinsmore. He is joined by Lindsey Hoelzle, Eric Levine, Alyson Ricker and Marshall Schreibstein.

    Job Swaps 31 January 2012

  • Hong Kong SF director appointed

    Erwan Stervinou has joined GE Capital as structured finance director in Hong Kong. He will now report to Brett Taylor, executive director, and Shane Bennett, structured finance md.

    Stervinou was a leveraged finance director at United Overseas Bank. He has also worked for Merrill Lynch in Singapore, Barclays Capital in London and Calyon in Seoul, Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong.

    .......

    Job Swaps 31 January 2012

  • Stroock partners move on

    Anthony Schouten and Jeffrey Stern have joined Pillsbury's finance group as partners in New York. They were each formerly with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

    Schouten's practice spans structured finance, corporate restructuring and commodities and derivatives experience. He is responsible for creating and negotiating derivative and structured credit products for investment banks and advises asset managers and others on their .......

    Job Swaps 30 January 2012
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