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Issue 152 - September 16th

• News Analysis

  • Operations

    • GSEs face the music

      Fannie and Freddie restructuring debate heats up

      Just over a year has passed since Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were taken into conservatorship, follow...

  • Regulation

    • Capital idea?

      High barriers to entry for contingent capital solutions

      Attempts by global regulators to address the pro-cyclicality of financial catastrophes have introduc...

  • Secondary markets

    • Pressure drop

      Tender offer result endorses improved Euro investor sentiment

      Santander's €16.5bn European ABS tender offer saw less than 4% investor take-up (see last...

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• News

  • CDS

    • Back-to-basics approach confirmed

      One year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial markets are taking a back-to-...

  • CLOs

    • Continued spread tightening expected for CLOs

      Structured credit analysts at JPMorgan expect US CLOs to benefit from the solid gains made in credit...

  • CMBS

    • CMBS distressed opportunities expected next year

      A new survey undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers reveals that investors anticipate near-term defaul...

  • Ratings

    • Further reforms necessary to tackle CRA issue

      Rating reform measures proposed so far only tackle issues peripheral to the key problems that caused...

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• Job Swaps

  • Alternative assets

    • Broker expands alternative investments group

      ICAP has expanded its alternative investments business with the recruitment of Laura Prager and Lind...

  • CLO Managers

    • Manager change for Amber CDO

      Lyxor Asset Management is to take on asset management duties for Amber CDO from Sociét&...

  • CMBS

    • CRE debt capital markets head hired

      Michael Mazzei will join Bank of America Merrill Lynch as md and head of commercial real estate debt...

  • Distressed assets

    • Distressed credit fund closes above target

      The final closing of the OHA Strategic Credit Fund, a US$1.125bn corporate credit distressed fund th...

  • Investors

    • Asian credit hedge fund prepped

      Blue Rice Investment Management has launched the BRIM Asian Credit Fund, an absolute return fund tar...

  • • Alternatives manager launches mortgage fund

      IMC asset management has launched a new US mortgage fund. The fund is designed to exploit inefficien...

  • • Special situations analyst moves to asset manager

      Knight Vinke has further strengthened its investment team, with the hire of Jeremy Ozen. In his new...

  • • Capital markets firm adds head of client development

      NewOak Capital has appointed William Denton as md and head of client development for its integrated...

  • • Chief economist appointed at investment manager

      Aladdin Capital Holdings has appointed Kathleen Stephansen as chief economist. Stephansen has previo...

  • Legislation and litigation

    • Bank fined over 'probable' CDO fraud

      A Connecticut Superior Court judge has ordered UBS to pledge assets or post a bond amounting to US$3...

  • • Law firm hires structured products counsel

      Dechert has hired Matthew Kerfoot as a counsel in its financial services group, based in the firm's...

  • • Law firm adds two in distressed investing

      International law firm Nixon Peabody is expanding its distressed investing and trading team with the...

  • • Ashurst pair find new home

      Latham & Watkins has hired two attorneys formerly serving at Ashurst. Riccardo Agostinelli...

  • Listed products

    • Permacap portfolio beats forecast again

      Queen's Walk Investment Ltd has reported a net loss of €5m, or €0.19 per ordinar...

  • Real Estate

    • Real estate investment unit established

      AllianceBernstein has established a real estate investment unit that will be led by Brahm Cramer and...

  • • Real estate investment group founded

      The CREF Group, a real estate advisory and investment group, has been founded by former Wachovia md...

  • • Promotion for real estate investment pro

      Arthur Nevid has been appointed chief investment officer of Mountain Funding, a real estate investme...

  • RMBS

    • Opportunity fund increases headcount

      Structured Portfolio Management (SPM) has hired Vishal Bhutani as an md to trade within the SPM Oppo...

  • Secondary markets

    • Valuations provider appointed for LBHI unwind

      Numerix has been selected by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LBHI) to provide independent valuations f...

  • • Secondary market auction platform launched

      An online auction platform built for traders of specialty financial instruments and investment produ...

  • Structuring/Primary market

    • Boutique adds in structured finance

      Reynolds Partners has appointed Stuart Macfarlane, formerly of Deutsche Bank, to lead its new struct...

  • Technology

    • BarCap buys minority Tradeweb stake

      Barclays Capital has taken a minority equity stake in Tradeweb. In connection with the transaction,...

  • Trading

    • Veteran MBS hedge fund manager hired

      Coinciding with the recent expansion of its platform to include trading in all MBS and ABS, Beacon C...

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• News Round-up

  • ABS

    • French bank brings debut credit card ABS

      Banque Accord has launched its first credit card receivables ABS. Arranged by Natixis, the ̈́...

  • CDS

    • Decrease in credit derivatives outstanding revealed

      According to the results of ISDA's Mid-Year 2009 market survey of privately negotiated derivatives,...

  • Clearing

    • ...and comments on CCPs

      The BIS' Quarterly Review also comments that the wider use of central counterparties (CCPs) for OTC...

  • CLOs

    • Barclays completes bumper Euro CLO

      Moody's has assigned a triple-A rating to €4.6bn of notes issued by Setter Capital CLO. Th...

  • • Equity injections for market value CLOs

      Two market value CLOs - the Avoca Credit Opportunities and OHA Finlandia Credit Fund deals...

  • CMBS

    • IRS action to facilitate CMBS loan mods

      A new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax rule that will allow US commercial real estate borrowers to...

  • • US CMBS triple-As range-bound for now

      US CMBS spreads continue to stay relatively range-bound at the triple-A level, according to analysts...

  • • Second Tesco CMBS rated

      Preliminary ratings have been assigned to Tesco Property Finance 2 - a UK single-tranche s...

  • • Borrower seeks to repurchase CMBS notes

      Proposals have been put forward to investors in the Mall Funding CMBS transaction with respect to th...

  • Indices

    • CMBS total return swap index minted

      Markit has launched a commercial mortgage total return swap index, dubbed the Markit TRX.NA. The ind...

  • • Lehman anchoring belies systemic risk

      Counterparty risk is considerably below its peak levels surrounding the September 2008 systemic cris...

  • • Surprise exclusion from XO roll for Accor

      Markit has published the provisional list of constituents in the upcoming iTraxx Series 12 indices a...

  • • US CMBS delinquencies continue to climb

      Though US CMBS delinquencies held steady at 3.04% in August, a closer look reveals a de facto increa...

  • • CRE CDO delinquencies decline

      Asset managers continue to extend maturing loans, with 54 extensions (4.8% by number) reported in Au...

  • • Euro credit card index shows signs of stabilisation

      The overall performance of the S&P European credit card index continued to worsen in Q209, f...

  • Listed products

    • ETF to offer iTraxx exposure

      EasyETF has expanded its fixed income range with a new product - EasyETF iTraxx Europe Mai...

  • Operations

    • HAMP loan mods rise, but re-defaults remain key test

      The US Treasury released its second Servicer Performance Report on mortgage loan modifications on 9...

  • • 2011 recovery expected for US ABS

      Underlying collateral performance in most US securitisation sectors is to remain poor well into 2011...

  • Ratings

    • Revised ratings criteria for US RMBS

      S&P has published its refined methodologies and assumptions for rating US RMBS transactions...

  • • Mortgage servicer advance criteria issued

      Fitch has published its criteria for rating securitisations of US residential mortgage servicer adva...

  • • Fitch takes action on US prime RMBS

      Rising unemployment and negative home equity are resulting in an increasing number of US prime RMBS...

  • • Ratings criteria adjustments enhance ABS stability

      Adjustments made by S&P to the rating criteria of non-mortgage ABS are believed to have bene...

  • • French RMBS ratings remain vulnerable

      Although the worst of the recession in France is probably over and a recovery has started, unemploym...

  • Real Estate

    • Additional buyback for CRE CDO

      Fortress Investment Group is proposing a further buyback of the Class A notes issued by Duncannon CR...

  • Regulation

    • Call for collective change over financial crisis

      The International Centre for Financial Regulation (ICFR) has published a comment that aims to take s...

  • • BIS report proposes flexible ABS retention rules...

      'One size fits all' ABS retention requirements aimed at aligning incentives between originators and...

  • RMBS

    • Prepays unlikely to impact UK prime RMBS ratings

      Fitch says that the marked decline in the UK residential mortgage prepayment rate over the past 18 m...

  • • US RMBS assigned LS/RR ratings

      The on-going US housing crisis has driven widespread and substantial downgrades of US RMBS credit ra...

  • • Perma funding share purchased

      HBOS has asked Moody's to assess the impact on the ratings of the Permanent master trust notes, foll...

  • SIVs

    • SIV auction to entail six lots

      Victoria Finance's US$8.4bn portfolio is scheduled for liquidation on 25 September, with capital not...

  • Technology

    • Vendor adds CLO coverage

      CDO Software has expanded its coverage into the CLO market and signed up Pearl Diver Capital. The in...

  • • Analytics platform expands asset coverage

      The ABSXchange structured finance analytics platform has been upgraded with a complete cashflow mode...

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• Research Notes

  • Operations

    • Loan modifications by servicer

      Chris Flanagan, head of global structured finance research at JPMorgan, examines the differences in ...

      We revisit loan modifications in subprime RMBS, examining differences between the modifications done...

  • Trading

    • Trading ideas: energised

      Byron Douglass, senior research analyst at Credit Derivatives Research, looks at an outright long on...

      Signs of life in the natural gas market sparked our interest in the energy sector and we make an out...

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