Complete news archive

  • Partner pairing moves to LA law firm

    Winston & Strawn has expanded its M&A, securities, private equity and finance capabilities with the addition of James Levin and Warren Loui as partners. The pair will join the firm's Los Angeles office.

    Loui was most recently at Mayer Brown, where he was partner in its banking and finance department. His representation of lenders and issuers includes acquisition financings of .......

    Job Swaps 15 September 2010

  • Law firm promotes partner

    Matthew Kellett has been appointed departmental managing partner of Berwin Leighton Paisner's finance department. He succeeds Simon Allan and, as part of this move, will also take on the role of practice group head of the firm's banking and capital markets group.

    Kellett joined BLP in April 2010 to develop its structured finance capability. He was previously a partner in .......

    Job Swaps 15 September 2010

  • Ratings vet joins RE software firm

    Real estate software vendor FNC has appointed Steve Grundleger as evp in its capital markets group.

    Grundleger managed the RMBS bond rating business for Fitch before collaborating on a structured finance business development group for the same firm. Prior to this, he was key principal at Duff and Phelps, where he developed and managed the RMBS bond rating business.

    .......

    Job Swaps 15 September 2010

  • Retention risk

    Article 122a leaves investors in quandary

    The window for commenting on Article 122a of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) is closing quickly, but before the 1 October deadline lots of questions remain over the retention rules. The guidelines for new securitisations formally go into effect on 1 January 2011, while existing securitisations that have new exposures will have to comply by 1 January 2014.

    If an .......

    News Analysis 15 September 2010

  • Emerging opportunities

    David Hinman, cio, and Raymond Zucaro, managing principal at...

    Q: How and when did your company become involved in structured finance?
    DH:     We were involved in structured credit at Drake, but now the firm has gone away, so these days we have our own firm and our mandate is pretty broad. We have a small and focused firm, which is essentially a long-short credit hedge .......

    The Structured Credit Interview 15 September 2010

  • Euro CMBS refinancing pressure mounts

    The necessary quorum of noteholders has voted in favour of the restructuring proposals for Titan 2006-4FS, staving off a loan event of default coinciding with the 3 September maturity. Indeed, only a handful of European CMBS loans maturing this month and next are expected to be repaid successfully.

    The Titan restructuring further extends the loan by two years and the .......

    News 15 September 2010

  • GSE reform debate continues

    The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) last week filed a comment letter with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) regarding the Agency's proposal to establish a framework for conservatorship and receivership operations for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. The move was swiftly followed by the Agency releasing data comparing the performance of loans acquired by the GSEs .......

    News 15 September 2010

  • Resurgent CRE market aids Japanese CMBS

    Investors are beginning to return to Japan's commercial real estate property market, according to Moody's in its latest Weekly Credit Outlook. The agency cites the purchase of four office properties by a Morgan Stanley SPV last week as an example. It says the resolution of specially serviced loans through property and loan sales of properties has increased throughout the year, .......

    News 15 September 2010

  • Lodging properties prevalent in CRE sales

    CWCapital is understood to have put up over US$300m in distressed CMBS loans for sale across two portfolios. The first - for around US$200m - is being held by Mission Capital, which has scheduled an auction with final bidding currently scheduled for 30 September and a closing in October. The second portfolio, for just under US$100m, is a package offered .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Ratings review hits US CMBS

    Fitch has placed 32 subordinate class transactions on rating watch negative (RWN), based on a preliminary review of 78 2006-2008 vintage fixed-rated US CMBS. The preliminary review indicates that the majority of rating actions for current high investment grade classes will be less severe than previous actions and will mainly be limited to one to two rating categories - particularly .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Upgrades, affirmations for Lehman NC RMBS

    Fitch has upgraded four and affirmed 39 tranches of seven UK non-conforming transactions that no longer have currency swaps in place due to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. In addition, the senior tranches carrying ratings above triple-C have been removed from rating watch negative (RWN), where they were placed on 19 July.

    The affected deals are: Eurosail - UK 2007-3 .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Fiscal tightening set to hit UK RMBS

    According to S&P, upcoming fiscal tightening could lead to a second wave of deterioration in UK prime and non-conforming RMBS collateral performance. The agency says it remains cautious about the longevity of the bounce-back in UK house prices.

    S&P analyst Neil Monro comments: "We expect house price movements to remain uncertain in the near-term and we note that a high .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Stable performance trend for Greek ABS, RMBS

    According to new indices published by Moody's, the Greek RMBS and ABS market recorded a stable performance trend over the past year, despite the severe deterioration of the greater economy and the sharp increase in country and banking sector risk.

    In June 2010, RMBS transactions showed a 90-days plus delinquency trend of 0.9%, which compares with 1.1% in June 2009. .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • NZ earthquake impact to be determined

    Fitch says that it is too early to quantify the extent to which the Christchurch earthquake could impact outstanding Fitch-rated New Zealand mortgage-backed transactions. The agency believes that: servicing activity will not be materially impacted; property damage may temporarily affect borrowers' ability to pay and possibly eventual recovery rates; and transactions might bear a certain degree of income shortfall, which .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Improving trends for future flow ABS

    Fitch says that the survival of future flow structured transactions during stressful periods in emerging markets confirms its belief that they protect investors' interests by mitigating sovereign risk better than other types of structures.

    Credit trends are improving for future flow securitisations in emerging markets, with rating levels generally rising over the last several years, according to Fitch. For the .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Tender offer for franchise ABS

    DineEquity, parent company of Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP Restaurants, plans to offer senior unsecured notes to qualified institutional buyers and non-US investors. It will use the net proceeds from the offering, together with the proceeds from other secured debt financings to fund tender offers and consent solicitation for certain series of its subsidiaries' outstanding franchise ABS notes. .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Singapore credit card ABS refinanced

    The Singapore credit card ABS, Diners Club Card Securitisation, has been refinanced under the Orchid Funding ABCP programme. The programme limit for the transaction is S$223m.

    The transaction - dubbed Card Centre Asset Purchase Company - comprises a working capital facility, class A1 and A2 certificates (all rated single-A minus by Fitch), as well as class B (triple-B) and C .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Utility ABS proves economic option

    Entergy Arkansas says its recent securitisation, the US$124.1m Entergy Arkansas Restoration Funding 2010-A, achieved the lowest interest rate (2.3%) for a utility ABS since the tool first came into use in 1997. The firm estimates that it will save customers US$32m in the recovery of costs associated with the devastating ice storm of January 2009 as a result of the .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • CMBS loan assumption completed

    1st Service Solutions has facilitated a US$6.7m CMBS loan assumption for two institutional-owned self-storage facilities. On behalf of the buyer - a regional self-storage provider - 1st Service Solutions worked with special servicers and the lenders' representatives to assume the two conduit loans for US$3m and US$3.7m respectively in acquisition of the properties.

    The 1st Service Solutions team was led .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Charter Communications leads CLO manager buys

    Charter Communications Holdings led the loan obligation purchases by CLO managers in Q210, according to a ranking of S&P's rated US CLO transactions. MSCI and NRG Energy followed in second and third place by loan obligation purchases.

    "Charter discharged more than one-third of its pre-petition obligations through the bankruptcy process and emerged from Chapter 11 with debt to EBITDA of .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010

  • Sovereign stress test calculations clarified

    CEBS has defended the European stress testing exercise, the results of which were published on 23 July (see SCI issue 195). In particular, it has clarified how gross sovereign exposures were calculated.

    The gross exposures disclosed in the stress tests were on-balance sheet exposures net of impairments but gross of collateral and hedging, according to CEBS. In order to provide .......

    News Round-up 15 September 2010
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