Contents

ABS

DSB wind-down begins

Dutch bank to exercise first ABS call option and aims for more

Bankrupt DSB Bank is preparing for the possible sale of its loan portfolio by winding down its securitisation programmes. The Dutch bank is beginning with consumer ABS Chapel 2003-1 before hoping to move on to its other four outstanding ABS and RMBS deals.

DSB says it has informed the issuer that it will repurchase Chapel 2003’s loan portfolio by exercising a clean-up call option. By exercising this option the bank will acquire the full and unencumbered ownership of Chapel 2003’s loan portfolio on 17 February 2020. As a result, DSB expects Chapel 2003 will be able to repay at least the investors in the class B and C notes, but does not expect to be able to repay, or fully repay, lower-ranked investors.

Rabobank credit analysts observe: “The D tranche (and the Registered Notes) are not expected to be repaid (in full). This is no surprise in our view, given the former carries a PDL of ~€16.7m as of November 2019.”

Meanwhile, DSB is also considering bidding on the loan portfolios of two of its other securitisations – Chapel 2007 and RMBS Monastery 2004-I. For the former, the bank currently expects that – should its bid be accepted – full repayment may be made to the investors in the higher-ranked notes, but says that the extent to which lower-ranked investors can be repaid is uncertain.

The Rabobank analysts highlight that lack of certainty and note: “None of the outstanding tranches (A2 though to G) carry a PDL balance here. The balance of the notes as of January 2020 stood at €99.96m.”

For Monastery 2004-I the expectation is that in the event of a successful bid it will largely be possible to repay all investors. The Rabobank analysts observe this provides even less clarity for investors before reporting the outstanding balance of the A2 through to G notes stood at €134.6m as of December 2019 (with no PDL balances).

DSB adds that it is also considering bidding for the loan portfolios of its other two RMBS deals – Monastery 2006-I and Dome 2006-I. However, these intentions are not sufficiently specific to result in bids in the short-term.

Mark Pelham

Structured Finance

SCI Start the Week - 20 January

A review of securitisation activity over the past seven days

Stories of the week
Consumer boost
Santander completes innovative SRTs
Under pressure
US student loan ABS holding firm so far

Other deal-related news

• ISDA, Clifford Chance, R3 and the Singapore Academy of Law have published a new whitepaper that provides analysis on the legal issues relating to the use of smart derivatives contracts on distributed ledger technology (SCI 13 January).
• Swiss Re has closed Sierra 2020-1 on behalf of Bayview's MSR Opportunity Fund. The US$225m catastrophe bond is the first to be issued under Rule 144A with a parametric trigger that is designed to cover mortgage default risk caused by earthquakes in California, Oregon, Washington and South Carolina (SCI 13 January).
• The Asia-Pacific Structured Finance Association, the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers and the Asian Academy of International Law have jointly published a report offering specific recommendations on how to enhance Hong Kong's financial ecosystem to deliver institutional investment capital through securitisation to key sectors of the economy, such as infrastructure and SMEs (SCI 14 January).
• The SFA has joined the Education Finance Council (EFC) in calling for wholesale legislation to smoothly transition FFELP student loans and the related subsidy away from Libor, to avoid potential disruption to over US$277bn of loans spread across 13 million borrowers. The EFC is working on a legislative solution that would transition the subsidy - called the Special Allowance Payment - paid to lenders on student loans originated under FFELP away from Libor (SCI 16 January).
• A new Moody's report suggests that structured finance markets are transitioning from Libor to a new set of global reference rates, which are less volatile in stressed credit environments but can be affected by the supply of and demand for collateral. However, it notes that markets are moving at different speeds (SCI 16 January).
• ESMA has published a consultation paper that aims to help market participants and securitisation repositories understand its expected maximum use of 'No Data' options contained within a securitisation data submission (SCI 17 January).

Data

BWIC volume

Secondary market commentary from SCI PriceABS
17 January 2020
USD CLO
A quiet end to a busy week as expected with the holiday weekend anticipated. There were four reported covers today, all BBB rated. There has not been a 2022 RP profile trade this week but today Blue Mountain's BLUEM 2017-2A C BBB covers 315dm / 7.4y WAL. The 3 x 2023 RP profile BBBs trade in a 279dm-310dm range, whilst this profile has traded 300-early 300s DM this week the MAGNE 2015-15A DR (Blackrock) outperforms the tightest comparable trade (OCT17 2013-1A DR² from Octagon at 295dm / 7.6y WAL).
In terms of generic spread migration this week, the AAAs have widened 5bps to 120dm mainly due to a trade in a very inexperienced manager Five Arrows OCTR 2019-7A A1 at 136dm (2022 RP profile). Double-As have tightened into 161dm from 171dm at the turn of the year. Single-As have widened 24bps to 241dm with 16m of liquidity versus 9m last week.
BBB generic levels have widened 16bps to 352dm this week, despite 2023 RP profiles tightening 13bps to 323dm there was 17.5m of liquidity in 2021 RP profiles that traded in 409dm context versus 346dm last week which has driven generic BBBs wider this week. BB liquidity was 170m versus 209m last week with generic levels widening 16bps to 682dm across all RP profiles - breaking these down the 2021 RP profiles firmed 11bps to 692dm, 2022 RP profiles softened 24bps to 696dm and 2023 RP profiles softened 24bps to 697dm. There were no single-B trades to report on this week.
EUR CLO
7 x BBB, 2 x BB & 2 equity today. There is quite a spread of DMs between the BBB trades. They range from 281dm to mat to 425dm to mat. The reason for this is that the trades at the tight end have low stated margins and so would be discount price trades but the chance of a refi/reset drags their price up and lowers the DM. On the other hand the higher DM trades have higher stated margins and would be premium priced trades but the risk of a refi/reset keeps the premium down and widens their DMs.
The tightest trade is DRYD 2017-59X D1 which traded at 98.56 which is 281dm to mat or about 19% to next call date and has a 240bps stated margin. The widest trade is DRYD 2019-73X DE which traded at 101.03 which is 425dm to mat and 410dm to call and has a 425bps stated margin. This follows the pattern for BBBs which have been pricing in a range from 300dm to 400dm already in Jan.
The BBs traded in a much tighter range. Since they were both at a discount price the effect of a possible refi or reset worked in the same way for them both and in fact is not a likely outcome anyway. The range for the BBs was between 552dm and 546dm and followed their term structure.
In equity DRYD 2016-48X SUB traded at 69.55 / 13.82%. It has a NAV of 58. It just got reset in Oct 2019 so cannot be called again Oct 2021. The collateral pool contains Galapagos (German company which makes Heat Exchangers) and is severely distressed. ACLO 4X SUB traded at LM92h / 12.82%. It has a NAV of 72. It becomes callable in Jul 2020 but since the AAA is paying a margin of 75bps it does not look like there are easy gains for equity there. Interestingly ACLO 4X SUB is a more levered equity piece than DRYD 2016-48X SUB. Looking at their MVAP and MVAP (see archive for details) it can be seen that ACLO is 9.1% of the collateral pool whereas DRYD is 10.7% but to offset this ACLO attaches higher.
EUR/GBP ABS/RMBS
A bunch of ABS/RMBS today. In autos we see GBP AAA autos (COMP 2019-UK1 A) at 49dm. Italian autos at AA level traded at 35dm and German autos, also at AA, at 73dm. There are a few legacy deals. CHAPE 2007 A2 (Dutch RMBS) traded at 38dm, BCJAM 3 A2 (Spanish RMBS) at 29dm and GRIF 1 A (Greek RMBS) at 123dm. A AAA Dutch RMBS (TULP 2019-1 A) traded at 46dm and AAA French RMBS (HFHL 2019-1 A) at 32dm and 23dm (HLFCT 2019-1 A). A BBB Italian consumer loan deal (BRICO 2019-1 B) traded at 107dm.

SCI proprietary data points on NAV, CPR, Attachment point, Detachment point & Comments are all available via trial, go to APPS SCI + GO on Bloomberg, or contact us for a trial direct via SCI

Structured Finance

Climate fund launched

Blended finance structure offers four classes of risk

ResponsAbility Investments has announced the first closing of an innovative climate fund, set up as a blended finance structure that offers different classes of risk and has received commitments from a number of public and private investors. The private debt fund addresses the lack of access to clean power globally, with a strong focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as South and Southeast Asia.

The fund is an initiative launched in partnership with AHL Venture Partners, Ashden Trust, Bank of America, Bohemian Impact Investments, Calvert Impact Capital, Clean Technology Fund, EIB, Facebook, FMO, Good Energies Foundation, the government of Luxembourg, IFC, Norfund, OeEB, Shell Foundation, Snowball and UK DFID. The four classes of risk on offer comprise junior, mezzanine, sub-senior and senior, with the junior class representing a minimum of 5% and the mezzanine class representing a maximum of 20%.

“It’s a structure that combines concessional and commercial capital, a product development structuring approach for the liability side of a company. It is often mixed up with public-private partnerships,” says Simon Gupta, head of business development DFI/IFI at ResponsAbility.

The model was developed within the confines of the Redesigning Development Finance Initiative of the World Economic Forum, which defined it as “the strategic use of development finance and philanthropic funds to mobilise private capital flows to emerging and frontier markets.”

The fund is incorporated in Luxembourg as a 10-year closed-ended structure and targets companies that provide solutions to households without access to electricity and businesses looking for cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy. Beyond the financing of the off-grid energy sector, it is the first investment fund of this scope to actively address the solar potential of the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector.

Over its lifetime, portfolio companies are expected to provide clean power to more than 150 million people, add 2,000mw of clean energy generation capacity and reduce CO2 emissions by six million tonnes.

Fund capital currently stands at US$151m, but could grow to US$200m, following a second closing that is scheduled for later this year. Looking ahead, Gupta concludes: “The main limitation is the market’s absorption capacity, or more simply, the number of assets with a high impact and a good risk-return profile. We opted for a smaller fund to deliver high impact and high return with adequate risk. Yet the follow-up fund might be larger if the market grows.”   

Stelios Papadopoulos

Capital Relief Trades

Risk transfer round-up - 23 January

CRT sector developments and deal news

Caixabank is rumoured to be prepping a consumer SRT for this year. The lender printed its last transaction in May 2019 (see SCI’s capital relief trades database). Dubbed Gaudi Synthetic 3, the €100m financial guarantee was carried out with the EIF.

Capital Relief Trades

Risk transfer round-up - 22 January

CRT sector developments and deal news

BBVA is rumoured to be readying a capital relief trade for 1Q20. The transaction would be the lender’s fourth ever risk transfer transaction (see SCI’s capital relief trades database).

Dubbed Vela Corporate 2018-1, BBVA’s last capital relief trade was completed in December 2018 (SCI 11 January 2019). All of the bank’s CRTs were carried out with the EIF.

NPLs

NPL ABS settled

Multi-originator trend continues

Twelve Italian popular banks - including Banca Popolare di Puglia e Basilicata and Banca di Credito Popolare - have settled a securitisation backed by an €826.7m GBV portfolio of secured and unsecured non-performing loans. The ABS continues a trend of multi-originator transactions that began over a year ago in the Italian NPL market (SCI 13 July 2018).     

Rated by DBRS Morningstar and Scope, the transaction consists of €173m BBB/BBB rated class A notes, €25m CCC/CCC rated class B notes and €5m unrated class J notes.

Prelios and Fire have been appointed as the two main independent servicers on the deal. According to Scope, the presence of two third-party servicers limits any sensitivity to servicer disruption through various measures.

First, the servicing fee structure links the portfolio’s performance to the level of fees received by the servicers, which mitigates potential conflicts of interest between servicers and noteholders. The servicers are entitled to an annual base fee calculated on the outstanding portfolio’s gross book value; a performance fee on secured exposures, calculated on collections net of legal costs; and a performance fee on unsecured exposures, calculated on collections net of legal costs.

Second, an overview of the servicer activities and calculations prepared by Zenith - as monitoring agent - mitigates operational risks and moral hazard that could negatively impact noteholder interests. This risk is further mitigated by discretionary servicer termination events at the option of the monitoring agent.

Furthermore, the semi-annual master fees, special servicer fees and legal and procedure costs are capped at 4%, 10% and 6% of the semi-annual gross cashflow respectively. Unpaid amounts due to the cap are paid only when class A has been paid in full.

Another positive driver of the deal is the underlying residential collateral. Approximately 54.4% of the secured first-lien collateral consists of residential real estate, which is typically more liquid than commercial, industrial and land property-types, and usually does not experience the same level of discounts and lengthy liquidation timelines.

Nevertheless, 43.8% (48.6% by GBV) of the portfolio’s first-lien collateral is concentrated in Sicily. This lack of geographical diversification exposes the transaction to specific local risks.

These risks include the possible weak performance of the economy and its impact on property prices, slow court resolution timelines and the impact of seismic activity, all of which potentially affect the realisation of value of the properties securing the loans. Exposure to seismic events is mitigated by insurance, however.

Additionally, the proportion of property under construction (11.3% of total first-lien property) is higher than for other peer transactions. Unfinished properties usually experience a higher level of discounts and lengthy liquidation timelines.

The pool comprises both secured (46.9%) and unsecured (53.1%) loans (including junior secured loans). The loans were extended to companies (72.2%) and individuals (27.8%). Secured loans are backed by residential and non-residential properties that are mostly distributed across Sicily and the south of Italy (70.1%), the country’s north (21.2%) and the remainder in the centre (8.7%).

Separately, JPMorgan is remarketing the Futura 2019 NPL ABS transaction. The Guber Banca deal originally closed on 16 December 2019, but the senior tranche is now being offered to investors. The transaction does not benefit from the GACS guarantee scheme (SCI 17 December 2019).

Stelios Papadopoulos

RMBS

Pooling proposals rebuffed

Call for GSE seller/servicer performance standards

Eight trade associations, including the American Bankers Association and SIFMA, have written to FHFA director Mark Calabria responding to the recent request for input (RFI) on UMBS pooling (SCI 17 December 2019). The letter states that while the FHFA’s “well-intentioned effort” to address liquidity and other concerns in the UMBS market is appreciated, the RFI includes proposals that could have negative consequences for the RMBS market and mortgage borrowers, which “should not be implemented”.

The associations acknowledge that the initial operational transition from separate forms of MBS issuance by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to UMBS was relatively smooth, but they believe there is room for improvement in TBA market liquidity and that fundamental misalignments that existed prior to the creation of UMBS have not yet been sufficiently addressed. “Unfortunately, we do not believe that the proposals in the RFI will address these issues and, instead, may worsen them,” the letter says.

Specifically, the associations believe that the approaches detailed in the RFI will not result in enhanced liquidity in the TBA market, will diminish the specified pool and CMO markets, and will cause harm to virtually every market participant - leading to higher costs or reduced access to credit that will ultimately impact mortgage borrowers. While strongly urging the FHFA to reconsider its proposals, they offer a number of observations.

First is that Ginnie Mae is not an appropriate model for conventional MBS markets, given that Ginnie Mae liquidity trails that of conventional markets by a variety of measures. “A critical assumption of the RFI is that creating much larger pools and limiting specified pool production will increase homogeneity and enhance TBA liquidity. While homogeneity (of the type provided by large multi-lender pools) is needed to a point, we believe that market participants continue to prefer some degree of variability and that more numerous pools (even with somewhat less predictable performance) will foster greater liquidity,” the associations note.

The second observation is that the proposals do not address underlying problems, a major one being that similar bonds issued by the enterprises do not necessarily trade at the same prices. The letter argues that driving more loans into larger multi-lender pools masks the problems without fixing them and reduces the incentives for originators to produce MBS, for which investors typically express greater demand, given that they will not be rewarded with increased prices for those bonds. Instead, originators of more desirable MBS will likely subsidise producers of less desirable MBS and any institutions that rapidly refinance loans in ways that do not provide tangible benefits for borrowers.

Third, banning originators with fast prepayment rates presents challenges and requires greater detail, according to the letter. “It is unclear from the RFI how the enterprises would distinguish originators with unjustifiably fast prepayment rates from institutions with faster prepayment rates resulting from technological or other innovations that drive more efficient refinancing. A preferable approach would be to require the enterprises to develop detailed, transparent standards for evaluating originator performance to ensure that bad actors are sorted out of larger, multi-lender pools,” it says.

Finally, the letter outlines the specific harms to market participants that could result from implementation of the proposals. For loan originators, the RFI would reduce execution flexibility and consequently product availability. At the same time, investment choices and strategies for investors would substantially decline, thereby reducing rather than expanding liquidity in the TBA market.

Further, to the extent that specified pool and CMO markets become less vibrant, this will likely result in decreased capital allocations to TBA desks. As a result, market-makers would carry less inventory, take on less risk and provide less liquidity to TBA markets. Reduced liquidity in the TBA market would, in turn, likely lead to higher interest rates for borrowers.

Overall, the letter urges the FHFA to direct the GSEs to develop seller/servicer MBS performance standards and require that they be clear and transparent to all market participants and well-aligned to prevent “forum shopping by bad actors”.

The other signatories to the letter are the Housing Policy Council, Independent Community Bankers of America, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, Nareit and the National Council of State Housing Agencies. Several of the associations are also planning to submit individual comments on the RFI.

Corinne Smith

Structured Finance

Bespoke service

Emma-Jane Fulcher, founder of Grovewood Capital Consultancy, answers SCI's questions

Q: How and when did Grovewood Capital Consultancy become involved in the securitisation market?
A: I founded Grovewood Capital Consultancy at the end of last year (SCI 23 December 2019). In my previous role as head of structured finance at ARC Ratings, more and more clients were asking for structuring advice during the ratings process – which, of course, rating agencies are prohibited from providing. As such, there seemed to be a gap in the market for a firm with a ratings background to provide arranging and execution support.

At the same time, there is significant demand for private SME transactions, in listed or private placement form. Reverse enquiry activity has picked up over the last nine months or so, driven by investor appetite, due to the dearth of paper.

Securitisation can be an expensive option for SMEs, due to the number of counterparties involved, but it remains an efficient way of raising financing. Providing expenses are covered by the note issuance, it is possible to amortise the costs over the life of the deal. We can also save money by, for example, ensuring the documentation is correct before passing it on to legal.

Q: What are your key areas of focus today?
A: Our sweet spot is in deals sized at £10m-£100m in niche asset classes. They are typically five-year transactions via vehicles that can issue further series of notes when appropriate.

We’re seeing enquiries around property, bridging loans and consumer lending assets from the UK and Germany, as well as equipment leasing, receivables and sustainable energy infrastructure assets from the UAE. One is a Shariah-compliant portfolio, but the others will likely be issued under English law via Irish or Luxemburg SPVs.

For private deals, at a minimum there needs to be sufficient security to ensure robust cashflows and structural mechanisms – including strong DSCRs and reserves - to mitigate as much risk for investors as possible.

Q: Which opportunities do you anticipate in the future?
A: Online lenders are one area of opportunity in the private ABS space. Together with overcollateralisation and concentration risk mitigants, originators are putting up their own property or assets as a form of security to address concerns of heightened risks. They are more likely to repay if they have skin in the game.

Q: How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
A: We differentiate ourselves because of our solid credit background – and I know what works from a rating agency perspective. Thanks to post-crisis regulations, rating agencies can only say whether a transaction has passed or failed their requirements; they can’t provide any further detail. Rating agencies are increasingly moving into niche areas and we can replicate their models, so an issuer is confident upfront that its deal will pass.

A handful of smaller arrangers are active in the market, but they don’t always have the right expertise or are prescriptive about taking a transaction on over its entire lifecycle. We cover a whole spectrum of services – from structuring and arranging to administration – and can support an issuer on a bespoke basis.

Q: What is your strategy going forward?
A: We have a strong pipeline and hope to add another couple of ex-rating agency staffers by the summer.

Corinne Smith

Structured Finance

CEE SME guarantee increased

Sector developments and company hires

EMEA
Alvarez & Marsal has launched a European debt advisory practice with the appointment of Tim Metzgen as a London-based md, with the aim of providing clients with independent advice on accessing and managing their interactions with the international debt markets. The new practice - initially comprising a team of five led by Metzgen - will help companies source, negotiate and amend debt finance across an increasingly diverse and complex range of structures and markets. Metzgen joins from Marlborough Partners, where he served as head of the corporate advisory team. Prior to this, he served for 15 years as a senior director on the KPMG debt advisory team, as well as holding roles in the capital markets teams at RBC, JPMorgan and Barclays.

CAPZA has appointed Caroline Abensour as head of investor relations, drawing on her 15 years of fundraising experience and her network of family offices, private banks and European institutions. Based in Paris, she will be responsible for expanding the firm's geographical commercial footprint and diversifying its client base. Abensour was previously md at Chenavari in London, where she headed business development in the Nordic countries, the UK, Switzerland and Germany. Additionally, Stefan Arneth is set to join CAPZA in Munich next month as sales manager for the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), responsible for developing relationships with LPs in the region. He was previously head of institutional clients at MEAG, developing third-party business for the firm.

SME guarantee doubled
The EIF and UniCredit have increased the InnovFin SME guarantee, enabling UniCredit to offer - via its nine banks and six leasing entities across Central and Eastern Europe - additional financing worth €500m to innovative SMEs and small mid-caps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The transaction brings UniCredit’s commitment under the initiative to a total of €1bn. The banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia and the leasing company in Serbia will benefit from the support of a guarantee provided by the EIF and backed by Horizon 2020, while the guarantee agreements with the banks and leasing companies in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia will be backed by the European Fund for Strategic Investments. The InnovFin facility provides guarantees and counter-guarantees on debt financing of between €25,000 and €7.5m, in order to improve access to loan finance for innovative companies with up to 499 employees. The facility is managed by EIF and rolled out through financial intermediaries in EU member states and associated countries.

Structured Finance

Parametric cyber risk trade inked

Sector developments and company hires

Acquisition
Ares Holdings is set to acquire a controlling interest in Asian alternative asset manager SSG Capital Holdings and its subsidiaries. Headquartered in Hong Kong with offices across Asia, SSG manages private credit and special situations funds totaling approximately US$6.2bn in assets under management, as of 30 September 2019. The SSG leadership team, including ceo Edwin Wong, and their colleagues will join Ares under the agreement. In certain circumstances, Ares may acquire full ownership of SSG pursuant to a contractual arrangement that may be initiated by Ares or the equity holders of SSG. The transaction is expected to close in Q2 or Q3, subject to customary closing conditions.

APAC
Moody's has appointed Brian Cahill as global head of ESG to lead its ESG strategy and outreach, and guide further incorporation of ESG considerations into its credit ratings, analytics and research. Currently md and regional head of Moody’s APAC corporate finance group, Cahill will take on the newly created role from 1 February. He joined the rating agency in 1996 as a structured finance analyst.

Cyber ILS inked
Re/insurance electronic marketplace AkinovA recently completed a landmark parametric cyber risk transfer trade, with full regulatory oversight from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, under AkinovA’s insurance regulatory sandbox license. The product was a quarterly parametric cyber instrument, purchased by an asset manager in the financial services sector. The coverage focuses on assets that are exposed to cyber-related disruption impacting underlying power generators in the US. The instrument was developed and structured by Hiscox, which worked closely with Guy Carpenter as broker to address the cover-buyer’s exposure. Hiscox also provided capital for the transaction. PCS is reporting agency on the trade, with the trigger referring to a robust third-party power generation index, combined with outage times and disruption levels.  

EMEA
HIG Capital has appointed Florian Kawohl as md of Bayside Capital, its distressed debt investing affiliate. Kawohl will split his time between the Hamburg and London offices. He previously spent 14 years at Strategic Value Partners, where he was an md. Prior to this, he worked at Carlyle Group and McKinsey & Company.

Structured Finance

Chinese reference centre upgrade 'credit positive'

Sector developments and company hires

Credit system upgraded
The People's Bank of China’s Credit Reference Center last week upgraded its credit information system to record and provide more comprehensive credit information on individuals and enterprises. The upgraded system can lead to better measurement and understanding of risk by lenders, which is credit positive for the asset quality of their loan books and any securitisations that include the new loans, according to Moody’s. Called credit bureau system version 2.0, the upgraded system adds new entry credit information categories for both individual and enterprise borrowers. For individuals, system 2.0 will record previously unrecorded details, including joint loans, revolving loans, large credit card installment payments, guarantees for enterprises, employment status and contact details. For enterprises, system 2.0 will record details such as joint loans, revolving overdrafts, guarantees for individuals and the industries in which enterprises operate. For loans in arrears, it will also provide the total amount owed and number of months in arrears.

Introducer relationship signed
Global private markets firm Pantheon has signed an introducer relationship in France with Paris-based Kermony Capital. Led by Michael Sfez, the firm will act in an exclusive capacity to introduce Pantheon – which is active in private equity, infrastructure, real assets and private assets - to French professional and institutional investors. Sfez worked for Russell Investments for 19 years and served as md for Russell Investments France between 2011 and 2019, before founding Kermony Capital to facilitate access to marque providers of private and alternative assets.

North America
Richard Barrent has founded Dux Advisory, a residential mortgage advisory company based in Des Moines, Iowa. The firm’s services include new loan product development, loan purchase recovery strategies, evaluation of seller loan pools and agreements, and analysis of contractual R&Ws. Barrent was previously director of advisory services at American Mortgage Consultants, which acquired The Barrent Group in July 2018 (SCI 27 July 2018).

RMBS interests offloaded
Charter Mortgages is set to sell its junior economic interest in the Precise Mortgage Funding 2020-1B RMBS, while the lender’s parent OneSavings Bank is set to sell its junior economic interest in the Canterbury Finance No.1 securitisation. The transactions - which are expected to complete tomorrow (24 January) - involve the de-recognition of the underlying mortgages of the two securitisations from the group’s balance sheet and will result in a reduction in the gross assets of the group of circa £759m and a reduction in RWAs currently attributable to the securitised mortgages of circa £287m. The sale, which was managed by BofA Securities, is expected to generate a pre-tax gain that will be recognised in the 2020 financial year.

Servicer ranking
Oxane Partners has secured a MOR CS3 ranking from DBRS Morningstar as a commercial mortgage servicer. The ranking report highlights Oxane’s technology platform, Oxane CREST, as the core strength providing robust functionality, process efficiencies and scalability. The platform enables lenders to track their facilities in real-time and access bespoke reports for meeting their reporting requirements. Capitalising on its technology platform and an experienced servicing team, the firm aims to digitally transform the real estate lending space by enabling lenders to be in complete control over their data.