Complete news archive

  • Italian ratings ceiling confirmed

    Fitch reports that if the Italian government was downgraded below single-A minus, Italian structured finance transactions would not be able to achieve or maintain triple-A ratings. The agency reiterates that it applies a cap of at most six notches to the uplift that a securitisation rating in a eurozone country can achieve above the relevant country's local currency IDR.

    Fitch's .......

    News Round-up 18 November 2011

  • Freddie targets reinstated loans

    Freddie Mac is to begin securitising certain mortgage loans that were previously delinquent and that the company has purchased from its related mortgage participation certificate (PC) pools. These mortgage loans have been reinstated to current, performing status and have not been modified.

    Beginning this month, these reinstated loans - which the GSE holds in its mortgage-related investment portfolio - will .......

    News Round-up 18 November 2011

  • Malaysian securitisation inked

    The Malaysia Building Society (MBSB) has signed an RM1bn agreement with Cagamas to proceed with a recourse securitisation of personal financing receivables and conventional mortgage assets. The transaction was facilitated by Maybank, Affin Bank, RHB Bank and AmBank.

    This is MBSB's second fund-raising exercise with Cagamas in the last three years. The last agreement was signed in 2009 for RM1bn.

    News Round-up 17 November 2011

  • Rock solid

    Benchmark performing well as end approaches

    Northern Rock's Granite master trust has endured a difficult few years, but its performance has improved recently. While the programme's popularity with investors is well established, amortisation means that its benchmark status is finite.

    The level of arrears seems to have stabilised within the Granite master trust, with 90-plus day delinquencies at around 7%, while CPR is back up to .......

    News Analysis 16 November 2011

  • ED share placement underway

    European DataWarehouse (Management) Limited has appointed Perella Weinberg Partners to arrange a placement of its shares. This represents the next stage in the creation of an independently-owned ABS central data repository, pursuant to the ECB's call for a market-driven solution, the firm says.

    The placement will target market participants, with the intention of ensuring that ED has a broad, diverse .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • CMBS conduit issuance estimated

    A new report from Deutsche Bank CRE debt analysts examines the CMBS loans that are maturing next year and uses them to project what the conduit issuance market should look like in 2012. The analysts estimate that conduit production will be approximately US$35bn in 2012.

    They indicate that the majority of loans securitised in next year's issuance will likely be .......

    News 16 November 2011

  • Euro ABCP responding to regulatory requirements

    S&P reports that the European ABCP sector is responding to increased regulation from national and supranational bodies, in particular the Basel 3 requirements. Specifically, conduits are making structural modifications to their programmes to meet new liquidity requirements.

    The inclusion of unrated trade receivables sellers continues to account for the majority of conduits' new seller activity. By contrast, their holdings of .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • First-half OTC outstandings published

    After an increase of only 3% in 2H10, total notional amounts outstanding of OTC derivatives rose by 18% in 1H11, according to the latest BIS figures. Notional amounts outstanding reached US$708trn by the end of June 2011.

    Notional amounts outstanding of credit default swaps grew by 8%, while outstanding equity-linked contracts went up by 21%.

    Gross market value of all .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • Sovereign CDS liquidity converges

    As of last Friday's market close, average CDS liquidity for developed market sovereigns had outpaced that of emerging market sovereign debt for the first time since the beginning of this year, according to Fitch Solutions.

    "This convergence in liquidity reflects the high levels of CDS market uncertainly on prospects for the Eurozone," says Diana Allmendinger, director at Fitch Solutions in .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • Future flow criteria released

    S&P has published its global methodology and assumptions for rating financial future flow securitisations. Specifically, the criteria apply to transactions whose repayment of principal and interest are secured by the generation of future diversified payment right (DPR) and merchant voucher (MV) receivables.

    The criteria provide a framework for assigning ratings to financial future flow transactions based on a multifaceted approach .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • Resi cumulative defaults stabilising

    Cumulative defaults for US residential mortgage loans continued to show signs of stabilising in 3Q11, according to S&P. While loans originated in 2006 and 2007 are still the worst performers, 2006-vintage mortgages have the highest cumulative default rates.

    S&P's cumulative default metric aggregates two types of defaults: active and closed. While active defaults comprise seriously delinquent loans for which the .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • HARP 2.0 implementation details released

    Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have released key implementation details for the revised HARP programme (SCI 26 October), in line with market expectations. The biggest source of uncertainty about the initiative ahead of the announcement was the extent of rep-and-warranty relief, with this now seemingly clarified.

    Overall the changes represent a moderate easing in reps and warranties for FHLMC, according .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • R2 partners with Trepp

    R2 Financial Technologies has announced a new partnership agreement with Trepp that enables users of the NxR2 system to integrate data and analytics from Trepp into their portfolio and risk management analyses. Integration of the Trepp data and analytics will further improve the depth and detail of analyses performed on portfolios that contain CMBS, the firm says.

    .......

    News Round-up 16 November 2011

  • Broker adds CCDS team

    Avatar Capital Group has hired ICAP's former credit hybrids team. The team will once again be led by Bill Mertens, who becomes head of credit hybrids at the New York-based firm.

    Mertens' team will continue to intermediate trades in contingent CDS (CCDS) and quanto CDS. Avatar Capital Group is part of FXDirectDealer (FXDD) and Mertens will now report to Joseph .......

    Job Swaps 16 November 2011

  • EC eyes tougher CRA rules

    The European Commission is proposing to toughen European legislation on credit rating agencies. The proposed draft Directive and draft regulation has four main goals: to ensure that financial institutions do not rely only on credit ratings for their investments; more transparent and more frequent sovereign debt ratings; more diversity and stricter independence of credit rating agencies to eliminate conflicts of .......

    News Round-up 15 November 2011

  • Sustainable home price model debuts

    Fitch has launched a quarterly report detailing its US home price projections, based on the results of its sustainable home price (SHP) model. The inaugural study contains projections as of 2Q11.

    Fitch expects home prices to fall by an additional 13% nationally in real terms. The agency notes that the housing market remains under stress from factors such as unemployment, .......

    News Round-up 15 November 2011

  • Solar financing MOU signed

    SolarTech and CalCEF have entered into a memorandum of understanding designed to bring finance, performance and reliability best practice leaders together. The aim is to accelerate industry efforts to increase investor confidence, decrease project risk and improve flow of capital in the solar financing sector.

    "The securitisation of solar assets will unleash one of the most powerful forces in finance, .......

    News Round-up 15 November 2011

  • Parliament ratifies naked CDS ban

    The European Parliament has voted into law a regulation to curb short selling and trading in credit default swaps. The sole exception is an option for a national authority to lift the ban for a maximum of 12 months in cases where its sovereign debt market is no longer functioning properly and then possibly renew it for a further six .......

    News Round-up 15 November 2011

  • IRGs revamped

    Fitch has revamped its issuer report grades (IRGs) to promote improvements in investor reporting standards for EMEA structured finance transactions. IRGs provide a measure of the quality, content, accuracy and timeliness of the reporting available for each transaction, the agency says.

    "Some issuers have made significant efforts to improve the information available to investors and deserve credit for the progress .......

    News Round-up 15 November 2011

  • NCUA settlements reached

    The NCUA has reached settlements with Citi and Deutsche Bank regarding potential claims relating to the sale of RMBS to five failed wholesale credit unions. The two banks have agreed to pay NCUA US$20.5m and US$145m respectively to reduce the losses associated with the five credit union failures. Neither settlement admits fault on the part of Citi and Deutsche.

    NCUA .......

    Job Swaps 15 November 2011

  • Hedge fund branches out

    Saba Capital Management, the US$4.7bn hedge fund established by Boaz Weinstein, is set to open a UK office in 1Q12. The new branch - which has been launched as a research centre and sub-advisor to the US limited partnership - will be led by former Deutsche Bank leveraged finance trading head Prakash Narayanan and is currently awaiting FSA registration. Throgmorton .......

    Job Swaps 14 November 2011
×