Complete news archive

  • Uncertainty after care-home rent drop

    Following the finalisation of restructuring plans in late September (SCI passim), the 249 UK care homes leased by Southern Cross were transferred to HC-One earlier this week. According to a notice from the issuer of the associated CMBS, Titan Europe 2007-1, HC-One also acquired Southern Cross' operations that provide back office support to the homes.

    However, in a move that .......

    News Round-up 4 November 2011

  • US bank risk model launched

    Trepp has launched the Bank Navigator, a web-based product for financial institution surveillance and risk assessment. The new model provides risk ratings and financial forecasts for all 6,900 US banks by comparing past financial information, regulatory data and loan history with proprietary analytics and macroeconomic models.

    Trepp has back-tested the product and says that, since September 2007, the model has .......

    News Round-up 4 November 2011

  • Standard CSA proposal outlined

    ISDA has outlined key provisions to the Standard Credit Support Annex (SCSA) proposal as part of its drive to improve standardisation in OTC derivatives. The association says it is a market-driven initiative that "allows firms to move at the pace they deem appropriate".

    The SCSA aims to standardise market practices by removing embedded optionality in the existing CSA, promote the adoption .......

    News Round-up 4 November 2011

  • Cantor beefs up in credit

    Cantor Fitzgerald has expanded its credit markets team with three new hires. David Pilcher joins as co-head of credit fixed income, while Ron Adzima and Terran Miller both join the credit team at md-level.

    Pilcher joins from Gleacher & Co, where he was co-head of the investment grade and hybrid business. He previously ran US credit trading at RBC and .......

    Job Swaps 4 November 2011

  • US RMBS mod performance improves, decelerates

    Performance on recent US RMBS mortgage loan modifications has improved, but the number of new mods completed continues to decline, reports Fitch. The agency attributes the decline to fewer borrowers qualifying or accepting offers under current programmes.

    There were 32,800 new mods in September 2011, compared to 86,400 completed in April 2009. The cumulative total of loans receiving at least .......

    News Round-up 4 November 2011

  • CLO team reshuffle will not harm ratings

    The proposed replacement of the key persons defined by Harbourmaster CLO's transaction documents in the wake of GSO Capital Partners' purchase of Harbourmaster Capital (SCI 6 October), will not affect its ratings, according to Fitch. GSO has purchased 100% of the share capital of Harbourmaster Capital.

    The proposed key persons to replace Fabio Salvalaggio, Stewart Wilkinson and (where relevant) Anna .......

    Job Swaps 4 November 2011

  • Euro fears slow US CLO issuance

    The European unrest has had a negative impact on US CLO issuance despite a strong first half of the year, according to Fitch. However, the rating agency sees encouraging signs for the market going forward.

    Six CLOs have come to the market during 3Q11, although only two have priced since August. Meanwhile, CDS spreads on those triple-As have widened 20bp-30bp .......

    News Round-up 4 November 2011

  • US law firm adds three

    Daniel Passage has joined Bingham McCutchen's structured transactions practice group as partner in its Los Angeles office. Passage has nearly two decades of experience advising issuers, underwriters and financial institutions on complex finance transactions, with an emphasis on securitisation and structured finance. He also advises issuers and underwriters in public offerings and private placements of equity, debt and convertible securities. .......

    Job Swaps 3 November 2011

  • CMBS origination team cut

    Credit Suisse will close down its CMBS origination team and downscale other businesses that are not capital efficient. In its quarterly earnings call earlier this week, the bank confirmed the cutting of 1500 positions, 50 of which are in CMBS.

    The bank's ceo Brady Dougan said CMBS is "[one of] those businesses where we cannot meet our return hurdle and we .......

    Job Swaps 3 November 2011

  • CCP capitalisation consultation continues

    The Basel Committee has issued its second consultative paper on the capitalisation of bank exposures to central counterparties (CCP). The Committee's proposals cover both capital requirements for default fund exposures and trade-related exposures to CCPs.

    The Committee's first consultation paper on the topic was released a year ago (SCI 21 December 2010) and the second paper takes account of responses .......

    News Round-up 3 November 2011

  • Parsing platform launched

    CMA has released a parsing solution for the credit options market. CMA Parsing Credit Options builds on the firm's parsing technology for OTC markets and follows last weeks' ABS platform (SCI 27 October).

    CMA says its new product extracts pricing data from emails, "enabling users to capture and compare a full set of pricing information with volatility surfaces for all .......

    News Round-up 3 November 2011

  • Marked improvement for US card collateral

    The performance of receivables backing US credit card ABS transactions improved markedly in 3Q11, says S&P. However, SIFMA data shows the US$165.4bn of credit card ABS outstanding is less than half of its 2008 peak and S&P expects this to continue shrinking.

    A new report by the rating agency shows loss rates fell to their lowest level since 2007 during .......

    News Round-up 3 November 2011

  • US CMBS delinquencies near highs

    The delinquency rate for US CRE loans in CMBS moved up by 21bp to 9.77% in October, according to Trepp's latest delinquency report. The CMBS delinquency rate is now at its second highest level ever - only the 9.88% reading in July 2011 was higher.

    After experiencing a big dip in the delinquency rate in August, the rate has now .......

    News Round-up 2 November 2011

  • Risk management data integrated

    TradingScreen has integrated Fitch Solutions' risk management data to TradeFI, its platform for accessing the fixed income markets. As part of the integration, TradingScreen will combine its existing execution functionality with Fitch Solutions' risk management data and access to Fitch Ratings' fundamental credit ratings. The integration will give TradingScreen clients access to critical fixed income data on-the-fly to help shape .......

    News Round-up 2 November 2011

  • Pole position

    Auto deals set to continue US ABS domination

    US auto loan securitisations in October totalled US$6bn and came on the back of strong September issuance of US$10bn. Considering the positive performance so far, analysts expect the ABS market to continue to be dominated by auto and other vehicle-related deals going forward.

    Public issuance of auto ABS - including lease and dealer floorplan transactions - totalled US$60bn year-to-date, compared .......

    News Analysis 2 November 2011

  • RMBS servicing pro hired

    Galton Capital Management has appointed Tim Lynch as head of servicing oversight, augmenting the firm's expertise in mortgage investing as it anticipates a new investment product offering. Lynch will oversee and manage all mortgage servicing activities related to this new product, including servicer evaluation, selection and monitoring.

    Lynch joins the Galton investment team with 25 years of mortgage industry experience. .......

    Job Swaps 2 November 2011

  • Mortgages found to exceed Basel assumptions

    Fitch says in a new report that the asset correlations assumed within the Basel 3 credit risk-weighting calculations generally exceed correlation values derived from US banks' credit loss experience during the financial crisis. Thus, the Basel correlations - which were calibrated several years prior to the crisis as a parameter within the Basel 2 internal-ratings based (IRB) approach - appear .......

    News Round-up 2 November 2011

  • Data repository application filed

    The DTCC has filed a registration application with the US CFTC to operate a swaps data repository (SDR), dubbed DTCC Data Repository (US), across multiple OTC derivatives asset classes.

    "DTCC is committed to working with financial authorities and the industry to promote a transparent and sound OTC derivatives market," says Stewart Macbeth, president and ceo, DTCC Deriv/SERV. "By filing these .......

    News Round-up 2 November 2011

  • Sapient lands ED construction role

    Sapient Global Markets has been mandated to construct the European Data Warehouse, the first European central ABS data repository owned and operated by the market for the market. The Warehouse is endorsed by the Eurosystem (SCI 21 April).

    Once constructed, the Warehouse will process, verify and transmit data for the benefit of originators, investors, data providers and other interested parties. .......

    News Round-up 1 November 2011

  • CMBS failure to repay warning

    Based on LTVs alone, 60% of European CMBS maturing loans could fail to repay by the end of 2012, according to S&P's latest monthly CMBS bulletin.

    The rating agency examined data on the 187 loans in European CMBS scheduled to mature between January 2010 and September 2011, to see what reported LTV ratios could herald for maturity performance. "Our study .......

    News Round-up 1 November 2011

  • Maturity index decreases in October

    Fitch's European CMBS Maturity Repayment Index deteriorated during October, decreasing to 37.2% from 41.7% in the previous month due to the very low proportion of loans maturing that was repaid.

    40 loans were originally scheduled to mature in the past month, Fitch says, of which ten either prepaid more than six months ahead of their maturity dates or were repurchased .......

    News Round-up 1 November 2011
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