Asset Securitization Report articles from February 2008

Asset Securitization Report archives from February 2008

Whispers.
February 4, 2008... Anthony Thompson, a managing director at Deutsche Bank who oversaw global CDO research, has left the investment bank, according to sources familiar with the situation. Deutsche did not confirm Thompson's departure. Previously, he was a director...

Clarification.(Correction notice)
February 4, 2008... The article CS Streamlines Global Banking in ASR's 1/28/08 mentioned Credit Suisse's planned integration of several of its origination and business areas under one group and executive. Although this reorganization includes the CMBS origination...

Mexico Lost Wow Factor in 07: But just marching on was a feat last year.
February 4, 2008... Thanks largely to the doldrums of the second half of the year, 07 marked a drop in issuance in those emerging markets that were 06's bright young things. Mexico, it appears, wasn't an exception, but the first aggregate figures to come out...

Slow Week as Market Heads to Las Vegas: Job cuts affect desks, leaving few to mark bonds.
February 4, 2008... On a macroeconomic level, the Federal Reserve was expected to follow its 75 basis point reduction with another when it met last Wednesday. For the asset securitization market, however, it would take more than a rate reduction for investors and...

January Remits: No End in Sight for Escalating Delinquencies.
February 4, 2008... It was bound to happen sooner or later. January remittance data have finally left analysts struggling to find new ways to deliver the same old bad news. "Credit performance of the ABX indexes is still terrible, in our opinion," wrote...

House Plan Gives Temporary Lift to GSE Conforming Loan Limits.
February 4, 2008... While the House of Representatives' $146 billion fiscal stimulus package includes a plan to temporarily raise the conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Senate will likely not follow suit. The House voted by an...

Merrill Lynch Cuts Back Portfolio, Bankers.
February 4, 2008... Weeks after announcing poor 4Q07 earnings and massive write-downs, Merrill Lynch is making drastic cuts to its structured finance group. In tandem with recently laying off as many as 60 people, by some accounts, the company will wind down...

MM CLOs: Trends and Outlook for 2008.
February 4, 2008... Best of Times, the Worst of Times The year 2008 begins with a tale of two seemingly conflicted realities. One on hand, middle-market CLOs continue to perform well and to avoid downgrades. On the other hand, like the broader CLO...

U.S. Student Loan ABS to be Tested in 2008.(asset backed securities)
February 4, 2008... The passing of 2007 marked a historic period in the U.S. student loan industry. An unprecedented amount of attention was directed towards student loan market participants in both federal and private programs. Business practices, underwriting,...

The Ten-Year Evolution of IP Deals.(intellectual property)
February 4, 2008... The impact of the subprime crisis has been broad and deep on Wall Street. The consequent economic losses and personnel layoffs (which, as of this date, may be far from complete) seem to be worse than at any other time over the last 25 years -...

New Mexico MBS Needs Time to Hit Stride.(Company overview)
February 4, 2008... As 2007 came to a close, MBS players around the world steeled themselves against subprime contagion. But Hipotecaria Total (HiTo) took a bold step forward unveiling a highly innovative, mortgage securitization vehicle in Mexico and issuing the...

Canadian ABCP on the Mend.
February 4, 2008... Five months after a liquidity crisis halted trading on about one quarter of the outstanding paper in the Canadian ABCP market, banks have made several key changes that have drastically tightened spreads and opened the possibility of a global...

Firm Sets Up New Group.(Brown's Buick Inc.)(Brief article)
February 4, 2008... Brown Rudnick has brought together staff from its structured finance, bankruptcy and corporate restructuring and distressed debt practices to form a structured resolution group. According to a release from the firm, this interdisciplinary...

Pushing for Transparency: The Key to Luring Investors and Abating the Crisis.
February 4, 2008... As market participants move forward into 2008, many have hopes of liquidity returning to the ABS market. To this end, increased deal transparency is paramount to bringing investors back into the space, market sources said. Part of the...

Hope for Weary Airline Passengers: How Securitization Techniques Can Address Capacity Constraints at Congested Airports.
February 4, 2008... Many view securitization as the culprit behind our subprime woes. However, the basic tenet of securitization remains a valuable financing tool whose benefits have yet to be fully realized. Though commonplace in the private sector,...

FOMC Dominates Market's Attention.(Federal Open Market Committee)
February 4, 2008... Market flows were light and went in both directions as last week got started, while many participants held out for the Federal Open Market Committee's statement on Wednesday. The tone in the mortgage-backed sector, however, was supportive with...

Euro Covered Bonds Survive Crisis.
February 4, 2008... As more banks realize the liquidity potential in European covered bonds, issuance volumes are expected to rise in 2008. "We are expecting it to be a very significant year, not just for the U.K. and Europe but around the world," said Peter...

Like Everywhere Else CIS and Turkey Get Hit in 2H07.
February 4, 2008... Reflecting the tone of markets worldwide, the second half of the year was a tough time for issuance from emerging markets in the CIS (former Soviet Union countries) and in Turkey. Among the deals tracked by ASR, the total ABS volumes in these...

Existing Assets Enliven LatAm 07.
February 4, 2008... The Latin American cross-border market was energized by a few watershed events in 2007, especially in the field of existing assets. But volumes still failed to reach the heights of previous years, and the same troubles afflicting other arenas...

Brazil Domestic Public ABS Tanks, But Overall Figure is Up in 07.(asset backed securities)
February 4, 2008... Depending on the criteria, volumes in Brazil's structured finance market either boomed or tanked last year. Factoring in private deals that are widely understood to be entirely tax-motivated, volumes hit about R$15.5 billion ($8.7 billion), a...

Whispers.
February 18, 2008... Brian Brennan, who headed Merrill Lynch's home loan trading business, has left the company. The investment bank did not confirm the departure, but reliable market sources said Brennan left his position to join a hedge fund based in Greenwich,...

MBS Market Tries, Tries Again.
February 18, 2008... After ending 2007 in disastrous fashion and becoming a downright pariah in 2008, the MBS market is in desperate need of inspiration. During the past couple of months, mortgage lending professionals and the dealers of Wall Street have been...

Harley, Daimler Deals Stall at the Gates: Meanwhile, general investor skepticism makes things fall apart in auction-rates.
February 18, 2008... Asset securitization professionals stuck ardently to their new routines last week, supporting credit card and auto loan securitizations to the exclusion of just about every other asset class. Yet while credit card and auto ABS were the only...

Bank Balance Sheet CLOs See Issuance.
February 18, 2008... Despite what seems like an almost nonexistent CDO market, bank balance sheet CLOs are still garnering investor interest, according to sources. While many of these deals are not publicly marketed, the high premiums banks have paid to get...

Buffett Offer Will Not Boost Ratings.
February 18, 2008... Rumors circulating around the market suggest the possibility of bailout plans by a bank consortium as well as potential reinsurance contracts to aid struggling guarantors. Last week Warren Buffett even went as far as to make a public offer to...

CLOs Battle Liquidation In Troubled Market.
February 18, 2008... Falling prices are forcing total-rate-of-return market-value CLOs to liquidate their underlying assets. These unwinding CLOs could present opportunities for investors, but could also drive prices down even further. And sources say the loan...

Infonavit to Drive Mexico RMBS.
February 18, 2008... While Mexico's structured finance has ground to a halt amid the generalized anxiety in the debt markets, Standard & Poor's offered a few forecasts for the market in 2008. The agency expects RMBS growth this year to come largely from...

Standard Nixes SIV Liquidity Rescue Plan.
February 18, 2008... Standard Chartered was set to finalize the $7.2 billion liquidity injection to its troubled SIV called Whistlejacket. However, deeper losses in the underlying collateral have reversed the SIV's good fate. Earlier this year, Standard...

The Road Ahead: Could Recession, Legislation Alter Card ABS Course?
February 18, 2008... Credit card ABS issuers poured significantly greater amounts of new paper into the securitization market so far this year. From January through Feb. 11, about $19 billion in card ABS deals were completed, according to the ASR Scorecard...

Market Sees Better Mortgage Selling: Negative headlines spur money managers to sell mortgage-backeds.
February 18, 2008... Last week started off with more negative headlines inundating the markets. On Monday, AIG reported more losses than previously estimated. The news led to a flight-to-quality rally in the bond market. This reversed on Tuesday when...

Lenders' Homeowner Rescue Effort Met with Doubts.
February 18, 2008... The plan constructed by six major mortgage lenders to aid homeowners and stem the flow of foreclosures has been met with skepticism by market participants. They are questioning the extent to which the proposal will actually help troubled...

Poland Prices First ABS Deal for the Year: Latest Polish auto ABS deal gives ray of hope to the volatile market.
February 18, 2008... The first securitization deal from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region - a 280 million ($408 million) auto leasing deal for Raiffeisen Leasing Polska, the Polish leasing subsidiary of Raiffeisen International - closed earlier this...

Moody's Tries to See Beyond Slump in EM.
February 18, 2008... The emerging markets of Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States witnessed a 23% drop in structured finance issuance last year to $7.69 billion, according to a report by Moody's Investors Service. With brisk...

Markit Puts ERMBX.UK on Hold Amid Market Tumult.
February 18, 2008... ERMBX.UK, the index designed to reference synthetic U.K. prime MBS, looked set for an early launch a few weeks ago, with market reports indicating that the new index could go live earlier than the ECMBX. However, adverse market conditions...

Euro Trade Associations Propose Transparency Efforts.
February 18, 2008... The reconstruction of the securitization market took another turn last week as a collective group of European securitization market associations outlined a three-pronged initiative aimed at improving market transparency. The associations...

Whispers.
February 25, 2008... Alec Crawford has joined Ziff Brothers Investments. Crawford was previously the head of MBS strategy at RBS Greenwich Capital. He left the bank in early December after more than three years (01/07/08). Before he was with RBS, Crawford served as...

When Does a Mexican Wrap Lose its Triple-A?
February 25, 2008... In my last column three weeks ago, I said that none of the major monolines was in any danger of losing the triple-A, national-scale ratings on its wrap in Mexico. Now, I'm not so sure. Given the velocity with which disasters are...

Cards and Student Loans Lead Issuance Week: Nelnet markets first deal of 2008, while ABS market gets clubby.
February 25, 2008... Credit card transactions continued to dominate the issuance tally last week. The American Express Credit Account Master Trust, Series 2008-2 came to market with a $1.2 billion transaction. Lead managers were Barclays Capital, Citigroup Global...

BMO Boosts Links and Parkland, Makes Exec Moves.
February 25, 2008... Hoping to shore up its two structured investment vehicles (SIVs) as it continues to liquidate the assets in those vehicles, BMO Capital Markets said it would provide liquidity support for the repayment of senior notes that secure the Links...

Moody's on Effects of Monoline Downgrades on Banks.
February 25, 2008... Moody's Investors Service said that the deterioration in the credit risk profiles of financial guarantors may have significant implications for a number of banks and securities firms. The rating agency's review for possible downgrades of...

CMBS Buyers More Vocal About Demands: Market dynamics have changed dramatically and CMBS investors are finding ways to cope.
February 25, 2008... Investors at the Investment Management Network (IMN) CMBS conference held in London last week said it wasn't fear that was driving the current buying freeze in the European market. They also offered issuers a list of demands needed to get the...

CMBS Players Looking for More Transparency in Rating Process.
February 25, 2008... Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings talked to CMBS market players about the future of their respective rating methodologies at last week's Information Management Network European CMBS conference held in London. Rating analysts...

Russia's MBRD Closes First Auto Loan Facility.
February 25, 2008... With originators from the Commonwealth of ndependent States unwilling to accept today's spreads in the primary market, warehousing remains the name of the game. But the word is that certain Western banks, grappling with capitalization issues,...

Investors Face Extension Risk.
February 25, 2008... All investors are encouraged to look at the potential for extension risk on every deal that they buy into, analysts said. "Investors have bought ABS bonds on the basis that they would be repaid at the expected maturity, either the step-up...

For European CMBS, 2008 Will Be a Year Marked by Recovery.
February 25, 2008... Investment Management Network's (IMN) fourth annual CMBS conference held in London last week had 480 market players in attendance, almost half of whom came from the buyside. The mood was cautiously optimistic. While most were certain that...

Litigation Troubles in Potential Monoline Breakup.
February 25, 2008... In any divorce, dividing up the assets can be a complicated and lengthy process, often accompanied by a mass of legal issues. The same appears to hold true when a bond insurance company is taken apart. Much of the news in the structured...

Solitaire Not Going It Alone; KKR Extends Yet Again.
February 25, 2008... In keeping with a recent trend in the ABCP business, HSBC Bank is implementing critical changes to its partially supported credit arbitrage conduit called Solitaire Funding. Now the program has struck repurchase agreements between HSBC and...

Mortgages Whipped Around After Holiday: Active selling causes wider spreads; concerns about duration extension related to weak housing and tighter credit.
February 25, 2008... Mortgages were slammed on Tuesday as investors returned from the long holiday weekend. It was said to be one of the worst days ever for MBS with substantial widening driven by active selling, wider swap spreads and higher volatility. Liquidity...

HPA to Drop Further Amid Recession Fears.
February 25, 2008... The drop in home price appreciation (HPA) was the crash that preceded the current economic pileup, figuratively speaking. With the expected recession intensifying the unemployment rate in the U.S., the HPA decline might be further exacerbated...

Can Government Initiatives Save Borrowers.
February 25, 2008... The government's efforts to stem the tide of home foreclosures in the U.S. expanded with the recent passage of the economic stimulus package. But, with the minimal impact that programs like FHASecure have had thus far, questions linger...