Asset Securitization Report articles from January 2009

Asset Securitization Report archives from January 2009

Whispers.(briefs)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Editorial Staff Thomas Zimmerman, who used to be part of the team that published UBS investment research's Mortgage Strategist, is still at UBS heading up a research group within Swiss National Bank Fund Management Group. In...

Currency Perils Hit Russia and Ukraine.(Column)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Combing the market for unambiguously good news these days often feels like running tap water through a sieve in the hope of trapping gold. It's just not going to happen. So I'll tap into yet another vein of...

Distressed Mortgage Portfolios: A Borrower-Specific Approach; Customized workouts as the key to accurate valuation.(ABS Report)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Brent Lippman, CEO, Response Analytics Although mortgage portfolios are going for bargain-basement prices, investors are still shying away from them. Notwithstanding a general sense that these portfolios may indeed represent...

Re-Appraisal: How Revision is Recasting Expectations.(ABS Report)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Kate Berry, American Banker In the original version of the home-valuation standards that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agreed to adopt under a March deal with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, lenders faced sweeping change,...

Securitization and Distressed Commercial Real Estate.(ABS Report)
January 5, 2009... As a great songwriter once wrote, "the times they are a-changin'..." For the first time since its inception in the early 1990's, the United States CMBS market and CMBS servicer capabilities are being tested by the very economic stress that was...

Closing the Book on a Historically Poor MBS Year.(MBS Report)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Sally A. Runyan, Thomson Reuters Mortgage-backed volume in the last two weeks of December averaged less than 70% of the 30-day average. Heading into the Christmas holidays, mortgages widened substantially on nearly $4 billion in...

No Happy in This RMBS New Year.(Cover Story)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Gabrielle Stein It is safe to say that securitization professionals will not miss 2008, and market participants fear that 2009 does not look much brighter. Activity in the RMBS sector remains at a lull, with mounting economic...

Consumer ABS Prospects Rely on Investor Appetite.(Cover Story)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Karen Sibayan The current ABS market is reminiscent of an earlier one where issuance came from traditional sectors such as autos, credit cards and student loans. Although issuance is not expected to surge in the earlier part of...

Euro ABS: More Pain With Little Optimism.(Cover Story)
January 5, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer The European securitization market looks set to keep on the same track it traveled throughout 2008. Government-sponsored programs are at the forefront of primary activity going into 2009. Until the market overhang...

Whispers.(Whispers)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Editorial Staff Javid Jaberi, senior vice president of servicing operations for Residential Capital Corp. (ResCap), has left the company as part of a reorganization, said a memo provided to ASR sister publication MortgageWire....

Mexico Posts $808 Million ABS/MBS Deals in December.(Global Report)(mortgage backed securities)(asset backed securities)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Mexico closed out the month of December with deals from four originators. Spreads were well out from earlier in the year, but these transactions at least made it through, and market investors bought in as well. All...

Impairment Tug Of War: Management Wins First Contest Over Valuations.(Cover Story)
January 12, 2009... Byline: John Hintze The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) narrowly decided Jan. 7 to approve an amendment allowing holders of securitized assets to consider factors besides fair value to determine whether to report losses in...

JPMorgan Takes Top Spot in 2008.(ABS Report)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Karen Sibayan As one of the last investment banks standing, JPMorgan Securities became the top-ranked manager for public ABS deals for the entire year in 2008, according to a tally of public ABS transactions included in the ASR...

MBS Spreads Tighten as Fed Begins Buying; Federal Reserve MBS purchases encourage other investors to pick up the slack.(MBS Report)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Sally A. Runyan, Thomson Reuters On Monday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that it had begun purchasing fixed-rate agency MBS. Mortgages rallied sharply over the course of Monday and Tuesday as the Fed bought...

Prepayment Speeds Increase in December.(MBS Report)(mortgage backed securities)(Statistical data)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Sally A. Runyan, Thomson Reuters Prepayments on FNMA 30-year MBS were in line with expectations. Overall, speeds increased 46% on average. However, the speed dynamics by coupon were much different than anticipated. The...

Euro Auto ABS Needs a Tune-Up; The general weakening in European paper was demonstrated by the auto sector.(Global Report)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer Much like the rest of the European primary ABS market, new issuance for auto ABS in 2008 slowed significantly compared with the volumes issued during 2007. According to ABS analysts, approximately E5.6 billion...

Islamic Finance in the GCC Region Keeps a Steady Pace.(Global Report)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer Islamic securitizations are still gaining some traction. However, the current credit crunch will keep any real activity under wraps, at least in the short term. In the meantime, issuers are focused on the Islamic...

Peru and Brazil Kindle DPR Activity.(Global Report)
January 12, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa During the last month of the year, Peru perked up, while an old hand from Brazil returned to the market. The three deals showed there was life in diversified payment rights (DPRs), in contrast to many other niches...

Whispers.(Whispers)(Erick Hernandez appointed at Alsis Funds)(Gary Kain appointed at American Capital Agency Corp.)(Edward Shaoul hires The Chotin Group Corp)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Editorial Staff LatAm ABS professional Erick Hernandez has been hired by Miami-based Alsis Funds as a vice president. The equity fund focuses on Latin American ABS, in particular residential mortgages (performing and...

Investors Will Bite, but at a Hefty Price.(Cover Story)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer Even when the credit crunch started to unfold and unleash a harsh reality for the future of European securitizations, the continent's covered bond market at least looked poised to step up as a beacon of security for...

In Defense of Fair Value.(Column)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Karen Sibayan The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a study on Dec. 30 recommending that mark-to-market and fair value accounting - including Financial Accounting Statement 157 or FAS 157 - be kept. Before the...

Dual Tranche Deals Come Out Of The CLOset; With credit crisis, big firms work on basic CLO offerings.(ABS Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Richard Kellerhals To combat a CLO market frozen stiff by a lack of new capital, price declines, and waning confidence, some firms are working on new CLO portfolio strategies to bring in business and keep current clients interested...

Goldman's Sallie Mae Deal Offers Long-Term Liquidity.(ABS Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: John Hintze The Jan. 6 filing by SLM Corp., known by the Sallie Mae moniker, to pursue a $1.5 billion financing through Goldman Sachs, represents an innovative deal structure that Goldman pioneered with CIT Financial last year. ...

In TALF, a Card-Backed Bond Lifeline.(ABS Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Harry Terris, American Banker After a nearly four-month drought, securitization of credit card and other consumer receivables is poised for a revival - with a different group of buyers. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan...

High Prices Pressuring Mortgages; Balanced mortgage flows result from Fed's mortgage-backed purchases.(MBS Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Sally A. Runyan, Thomson Reuters After strong buying over the first three days following the Federal Reserve's announcement that it had started to buy agency MBS, flows turned more balanced. The average price of the MBS market...

Rate Cut Adds More Worry for European CMBS.(Global Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer The Bank of England made its move to cut the U.K. base rate by half a point to 1.5%. The move takes the benchmark interest rate to the lowest level since the Bank's founding in 1694 and follows the rest of Europe....

Mexican '08 Wrap: Not So Grim.(Global Report)(Brief article)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Mexico's domestic bond market stumbled during stretches of the year but still fared better than fixed income in many other countries. Overall debt issuance dropped 22.1% in 2008 from 2007, according to local...

Russian Factoring Struggles Along with Originator.(Global Report)
January 19, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Russian Factoring 1 is in serious trouble. The deal's originator and primary servicer, Eurokommerz, has technically defaulted on its plain vanilla debt. Meanwhile, crumbling credit enhancement coupled with shrinking...

Whispers.(Whispers)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Editorial Staff UBS launched a new series of senior management job cuts within its securities unit as it gets out of real estate, securitization and "exotic" structured products, according to an internal memo. The memo, dated Jan....

4th Quarter 2008 new issues Guide.(ABS Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Karen Sibayan Issuers AmeriCredit Corp., Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG braved the volatile securitization market to come out with transactions with a collective total of $3.1 billion. To call these...

Will New Govt. Schemes Shake the U.K. Out of Its Housing Nightmare? "For now it' s only buyers with good credit and large deposits that have access to bank lendings.".(Column)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer Saving a country's economy from a financial meltdown is a balancing act, but in the end there is no easy solution - just attention to detail. The U.K. is moving toward the second stage of its bailout plan for its...

Brazilian ABS Stays Above Water.(Cover Story)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Brazilian ABS has stayed afloat as its counterparts in more developed markets dive and drown in lemming-like numbers. Issuance in South America's giant actually rose last year, and the quality of the main asset...

Cram-Downs Muddle ABS Prospects.(ABS Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Gabrielle Stein Bankruptcy cram-downs have increasingly become a concern for the ABS market over the past few weeks in light of Citigroup's decision to back a revised bill amending the bankruptcy code. The legislation also carries...

Credit Woes Cloud Future for Advanta.(ABS Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Harry Terris, American Banker A surge in chargeoffs and delinquencies is threatening Advanta Corp.'s survival. Analysts said that if the Spring House, Pa., card issuer's portfolio continues to worsen at the rate posted last...

MBS Flows Limited as "Change" Is Ushered In.(MBS Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Sally A. Runyan, Thomson Reuters A holiday and a Presidential Inauguration garnered market participants' attention into midweek. In addition, activity remained limited on Wednesday as investors waited for more information on the...

U.K. ABS Could Gain Boost from New Initiatives; The new package carries a wide array of initiaves to stimulate lending.(Global Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Nora Colomer The U.K. government last week made a number of announcements regarding initiatives intended to support lending. In conjunction with the steps already taken by the U.K. government in coordination with its...

As Economy Worsens, E uro CLOs Hibernate.(Global Report)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Savita Iyer-Ahrestani There's little doubt among market participants that in the tainted universe of structured finance, the collateralized loan obligation has the greatest chance of survival. The CLO structure is sound and robust,...

Turkey's Denizbank Issues $650m DPR Bond.(Global Report)(Brief article)
January 26, 2009... Byline: Felipe Ossa Turkey's Denizbank has rung in the New Year with a $650 million, six-year deal backed by diversified payment rights. Rated 'BBB+' by Fitch Ratings, the transaction priced at 350 basis points over one-month USD...