Complete news archive

  • Fed's risk retention report welcomed

    The US Federal Reserve Board has issued a report on the potential impact of credit risk retention requirements on securitisation markets, as required under the Dodd-Frank Act. The report highlights the significant differences in market practices and performance across securitisations backed by different types of assets, recommending that regulatory agencies take these differences into account when developing risk retention requirements.

    Overall, .......

    News Round-up 21 October 2010

  • SIV ratings withdrawn

    S&P has withdrawn its issuer credit rating on Beta Finance, as well as the ratings on the SIV's MTNs and CP. This follows the repayment of the MTNs and CP. The programme ratings were also withdrawn at the issuer's request.

     

    .......

    News Round-up 21 October 2010

  • EC sets out crisis management framework

    In response to the G20 agreement, the European Commission has set out its plans for an EU prevention and crisis management framework in the financial sector. The framework, the EC says, sets out a roadmap of measures with a view to delivering a more integrated system, in particular better suited to European banking groups.

    Internal market and services commissioner, Michel Barnier, .......

    News Round-up 21 October 2010

  • Put-back potential boosts US RMBS

    Highly priced assets, together with the current focus on the mortgage foreclosure scandal are driving forces in the US RMBS market this week.

    "There has been a lot of noise in the market this week," one RMBS trader notes. This, he says, is due to the news headlines on mortgage servicer and originator representation and warranty breaches (SCI passim).

    The .......

    Market Reports 21 October 2010

  • Capital efficient mezz fund marketing

    Prytania Investment Advisors, in collaboration with Austrian firm Kuperstein, is prepping a fund designed to help financial institutions hold assets in a more capital efficient way under the new regulatory rules to come, such as Basel 3 and Solvency 2. The offering will target predominantly EMEA and, potentially, US corporate and consumer mezzanine assets at origination.

    Dubbed the Primary Mezzanine .......

    News 21 October 2010

  • Euro CMBS payment defaults rising

    S&P reports that European CMBS maturity payment defaults are continuing to increase this year and have, for the first time, outstripped term payment defaults.

    Of the 34 payment defaults in 2009, only eight defaulted for the first time at maturity - with 26 defaulting during the loan term. By contrast, of the 33 payment defaults between January and September 2010, 18 .......

    News Round-up 21 October 2010

  • Spanish foreclosures hit new record

    Moody's reports that the rapid deterioration in Spain's economy and its illiquid housing market conditions have forced banks to initiate record numbers of foreclosures on Spanish mortgages since 2007. This, the agency says, will raise the severity of losses, squeezing liquidity and increasing cash commingling risk for RMBS transactions.

    The volume of Spanish foreclosed mortgages that were taken to court .......

    News Round-up 20 October 2010

  • Bank adds sales director

    Lloyds Bank has appointed Maureen Osborne as director in its capital market sales group. Covering the Nordic region, she will be responsible for credit sales, including ABS, reporting to the group's head of Germany and Scandinavia Hans Enssle.

    Osborne joins the firm from Matrix and has over 20 years of credit sales experience.

    .......

    Job Swaps 20 October 2010

  • Fitch restructures EMEA SF group

    Fitch has made a number of personnel changes to its EMEA structured finance group.

    Karen Skinner has been promoted to md in Fitch's newly-created global research strategy group. Based in London, Skinner and the group will report to Peter Jordan, the firm's head of global business management.

    Skinner was previously head of business & relationship management for structured finance and .......

    Job Swaps 20 October 2010

  • Making a list

    Opportunities abound as listed credit hedge funds start to reappear

    Credit hedge funds have a plethora of opportunities open to them if they are savvy enough to exploit them. Europe's largest hedge fund manager, Brevan Howard, is widely understood to be planning to list a fund in December and there are already signs that others are following suit.

    George Tintor, md at Schwartzkopff Partners, notes that Brevan Howard's move could .......

    News Analysis 20 October 2010

  • Advocating change

    Ann Hambly, ceo, and Brock Andrus, managing partner at 1st Service Solutions, answer SCI's questions

    Q: How and when did 1st Service Solutions become involved in the structured finance market?
    AH:     I've been in the servicing industry for 34 years and a large amount of that time was spent in CMBS servicing. I was previously ceo at Prudential Servicing until 2005 and before that at GE and Nomura.

    The year before I founded 1st Service Solutions, .......

    Provider Profile 20 October 2010

  • NAMA upside

    Conor Houlihan, partner with Dillon Eustace, discusses inves...

    Ireland's well-documented property-fuelled boom has come to a crashing halt, leaving billions of euros of distressed assets on the loan books of the major Irish banks. As a result, Ireland is becoming a focal point for buy-out and distressed investment activity, with individual assets now changing hands at discounts of 50% and upwards.

    In an effort to repair the Irish .......

    Research Notes 20 October 2010

  • Foreclosuregate unlikely to pose systemic risk

    Estimates of mortgage servicers' and originators' potential liability for breaches of representations and warranties and loan documentation errors vary significantly. But there is agreement that 'foreclosuregate' is unlikely to become a significant systemic risk.

    Indeed, many recent analyses of banks' liability for such claims appear to overestimate the likely extent of the problem, according to MBS analysts at RBS. They .......

    News 20 October 2010

  • Real estate vets join advisory firm

    Chatham Financial has appointed Mike Havala and John Avioli as senior executives in its capital advisory group, Chatham Capital Advisors. The pair will launch its Chicago office.

    Havala and Avioli were the co-founders of Blue Spire Capital, a Chicago-based consulting group. Previously, Havala spent 15 years as the cfo of First Industrial, while Avioli spent 12 years as the director .......

    Job Swaps 20 October 2010

  • US CRE prices fall again in August

    The latest results from Moody's REAL Commercial Property Price Indices (CPPI) show that US CRE prices decreased by 3.3% in August - the third consecutive monthly decline of between 3% and 4%.

    Prices are now the lowest they have been since the beginning of the market downturn, falling below the previous low recorded in October 2009. Nationwide, prices are 45.1% .......

    News Round-up 20 October 2010

  • Signs of stability for subprime RMBS

    The latest results from Fitch's US subprime RMBS indices suggest that although prices remain at a crossroads overall, two of the sector's more maligned vintages are showing signs of stabilising. The total index stands at 9.85 through to the end of last month, which is similar to August, the firm reports.

    While the index price has remained virtually flat over .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2010

  • Quantitative analyst added

    Fitch Solutions has appointed Joao Garcia as md of its quantitative analytics group. He will be responsible for the quantitative financial research of the group, as well as the management and development of its credit-based products, spanning areas such as credit risk, interest rate risk and market risk. Based in London, Garcia will report to Fitch md Thomas Aubrey.

    Garcia .......

    Job Swaps 19 October 2010

  • Technical factors driving CMBX rally

    A number of factors are behind the rally in the Markit CMBX indices in recent months. While some of these factors are due to fundamentals, the rally has been more technical in nature, according to MBS analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

    From a fundamental perspective, market participants appear to be growing more positive on their outlook for commercial .......

    News 19 October 2010

  • Strong par dynamics support US CLOs

    The demonstrated ability of CLOs to behave as advertised - in other words, shutting off proceeds to junior notes in a downturn and switching them back on only as and when par is restored - is a key takeaway of the financial crisis, according to CDO analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Par levels consequently remain a relatively sensible .......

    News 19 October 2010

  • Two-way traffic for Euro CLOs

    With new issuance creating investor opportunity across both primary and secondary markets, the European CLO sector has seen a healthy flow of activity over the past week.

    "The market this week has been good; there is much buying interest from our accounts," one CLO trader confirms. "There has been a high volume of market participation, which we have not seen .......

    Market Reports 19 October 2010

  • FLTST 1 senior noteholders fire warning shot

    M&G is to convene an informal meeting of the class A noteholders in Fleet Street Finance One to discuss the pending maturity of the outstanding loan, which is scheduled for February 2011. European asset-backed analysts at RBS suggest that the action is a direct response to Cairn's appointment as financial advisor to the Queens Moat House borrower, which may be .......

    News Round-up 19 October 2010
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