Complete news archive

  • ISDA updates on Greek CDS

    ISDA has released an update, following recent events related to the restructuring of Greek sovereign debt.

    The Association confirms that the determination of whether the Eurozone deal with regard to Greece is a credit event under CDS documentation will be made by its EMEA Determinations Committee when the proposal is formally signed and if a market participant requests a ruling .......

    News Round-up 28 October 2011

  • SF partner moves on

    Stephen Whelan has joined Blank Rome as a partner in the financial services group, based in New York. For more than 30 years, he has built a substantial practice in the areas of equipment leasing and structured finance, secured lending and asset securitisation.

    Whelan joins Blank Rome from SNR Denton, where he was a member of the capital markets practice, .......

    Job Swaps 28 October 2011

  • Projected GSE draws revised down

    The FHFA has updated its projections of possible future Treasury draws by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reflect the current outlook for house prices, interest rates and recent trends in borrower behaviour.

    To date, the GSEs have drawn US$169bn from Treasury under the terms of the Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements (PSPAs). Under the three scenarios used in the .......

    News Round-up 28 October 2011

  • Citi taps CDS clearing pro

    Suzanne Hubble has joined Citi to help drive its OTC derivative clearing platform in the European markets. She brings over 13 years of industry experience to this role, including positions in credit trading businesses and FX e-commerce. Most recently, she was at ICE Clear Europe, where she was the director of credit default swap development.

    .......

    Job Swaps 28 October 2011

  • US CMBS bounces back

    The US CMBS market has been significantly buoyed by the latest eurozone debt talks. Spreads have tightened markedly and investors are talking about a return to higher yielding assets.

    "We have really seen a number of clients return to legacy assets. For a while, CMBS was lagging competing asset classes pretty dramatically. It kind of led the way down and .......

    Market Reports 27 October 2011

  • CVA portal launched

    Quantifi has launched a free online information source for professionals active in counterparty risk management and credit valuation adjustment (CVA). CounterpartyRiskManagement.org is a community site devoted to providing timely industry news, research and information on important issues surrounding counterparty risk. The firm says the portal has been designed to enable market participants to be better informed of the rapidly changing .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • EFSF package unveiled

    The banking package announced yesterday by EU policymakers will allow the EFSF to be leveraged up to five times via two options: collateralised insurance, which will operate only in the primary market; and some form of SPV, with leverage expected to come from the IMF/capital market investors in a tranche structure likely to see the EFSF bearing the first loss. .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • Oak Hill management stake increases

    An investor group composed of General Atlantic, Robert Bass and senior management has made an investment in Oak Hill Advisors, purchasing the minority stake held by iStar Financial. The transaction increases the management team's majority interest in Oak Hill Advisors and brings GA as a minority investor into the company. Bass co-founded Oak Hill Advisors' first investment fund and has .......

    Job Swaps 27 October 2011

  • Rise in FFELP prepays expected

    The US government has announced changes to its student loan programme that will likely result in an increase in prepayments in FFELP student loan ABS, according to Fitch. While negative from a credit perspective, the changes are not expected to have any material impact on existing ratings, the agency notes.

    Student loan ABS transactions with borrowers that have loans under .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • 'Significant' improvement seen in charge-offs

    US credit card charge-offs improved significantly in September, according to Moody's Credit Card Index. Moody's charge-off rate fell to 5.27%, its lowest point since December 2007, with the six largest issuers each posting sizeable declines in their trust charge-off rates.

    "September has routinely been a good month for the charge-off rate. Tax refunds in April mean that fewer obligors become .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • ABS parsing service minted

    CMA has launched CMA ABSparsing, a new service that parses ABS auction and offering price runs received by front-office professionals. The platform parses and organises a firm's ABS pricing emails into a format that is easy to use and integrate into internal systems.

    CMA ABSparsing processes data from auction price talk, colour and offering email runs. The data can be .......

    News Round-up 27 October 2011

  • Strong CMBS resolution success rate

    Despite tremendous volume of underperforming US CMBS brought on by the credit crisis, special servicers have maintained a strong success rate for resolving delinquent loans, according to Fitch. Special servicers have resolved over US$82bn in distressed CMBS since 2007, with an average recovery rate of 86%, the agency says.

    Additionally, over three-quarters of the volume has come in 18 months .......

    News Round-up 26 October 2011

  • Growth market

    New supply of Aussie CLNs gaining traction

    Demand for simple Australian structured credit products is increasing - albeit from a low level - as investors search further afield for yield. At the same time, issuance of these products offers banks an opportunity to attract a new source of funding while other avenues, such as securitisation, remain relatively subdued.

    Westpac is one such bank that is actively marketing .......

    News Analysis 26 October 2011

  • Australian Mortgage Delinquencies Increasing Despite Mining Boom

    By Arthur Karabatsos, Moody's Vice President and Senior Analyst (Advertising Feature)

    Despite the Australian mining boom, mortgage performance has shown a material deterioration since Moody's last regional delinquency report in October 2010. Between March 2010 and June 2011, as the national delinquency rate - as calculated by Moody's - rose to 1.67% from 1.36%, regions performing poorly or very poorly increased fourfold to 28 from seven. Of Australia's 65 regions, those .......

    Research Notes 26 October 2011

  • Floating into fixed?

    Increased acceptance of fixed rate CMBS loans expected

    The UK commercial real estate lending market is built on convention and at present the convention is for floating rate loans. But limited refinancing options and the emergence of a new breed of originators are driving increased acceptance of fixed rate loans in European CMBS.

    New European CRE platforms are emerging with the mandate to originate fixed rate loans. Jefferies .......

    News Analysis 25 October 2011

  • Prepay potential

    Major HARP changes announced

    The FHFA and GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday announced a long-anticipated series of changes to HARP (SCI passim), designed to encourage more eligible borrowers to refinance. Up to three million borrowers could take advantage of the changes, with prepayment speeds expected to rise dramatically as a result.

    "Building on the industry's experience with HARP over the last two .......

    News Analysis 25 October 2011

  • CCP resolution regimes stressed

    Paul Tucker, deputy governor financial stability at the Bank of England, yesterday outlined at a European Commission post-trading conference what he believes are the essential issues in contributing to the safety and soundness of CCPs.

    Tucker pointed out that trading, clearing and settlement infrastructure has over time coalesced into vertically integrated groups. As a result, he emphasised the importance of .......

    News Round-up 25 October 2011

  • Asian CDS liquidity hits high

    Fitch Solutions reports that in the two weeks to 21 October a jump in CDS market uncertainty on the prospects for regional health care, utilities and technology companies helped drive average liquidity for Asian entities to the highest level since the firm's CDS liquidity scores time series began in March 2006.

    "Whilst Asian CDS still lag the higher levels of .......

    News Round-up 25 October 2011

  • Trups defaults, deferrals continue to decline

    The combined default and deferral rate for US bank Trups CDOs declined this past month, according to Fitch's latest index results. 14 banks resumed interest payments and repaid accrued interest on their Trups through the third quarter, compared to just two through the third quarter of last year (see also SCI 24 October).

    "While the increase in cures is an .......

    News Round-up 25 October 2011

  • Euro CMBS research platform launched

    Goldstar Research, a new subscription-based web platform that provides analysis of European CMBS transactions, has been launched. The company has developed a suite of products including quarterly deal reports with interim updates to be published on Goldstar's blog and a free CMBS portal through which participants can access market research and transaction data.

    The service delivers tactical research on individual .......

    Job Swaps 24 October 2011

  • Reflective ratings?

    Trups CDO outlook stabilises, ratings questioned

    The number of 'problem banks' monitored by the FDIC dropped in the second quarter from 888 to 865 - the first decrease since the financial crisis began - which should mean fewer new defaults in Trups CDOs. Although the market is not declaring a recovery just yet, questions are being asked about the accuracy of current ratings in the sector.

    News Analysis 24 October 2011

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