This week on Another Fine Mezz, the usual suspects of host Tom Lemmon and CLO reporter Victoria Thiele were a man down owing to European ABS reporter George Smith having lost his voice — of all things.
However, GlobalCapital now has a securitization podcasting production line not dissimilar to Australian cricket's fast bowling ranks, which meant it was time for a debut (more on the Australian cricket references later). George's absence paved the way to welcome the newest CLO reporter, Austin Barnes, to the show.
In European securitization, just one deal was priced, Bletchley Park Funding 2024-1, by specialist buy-to-let lender Quantum Mortgages.
And with so little activity in Europe, an Australian securitization of 'reverse mortgages' — meaning mortgages for retired people in which principal and interest only has to be paid when the home is sold — took the limelight. The deal, by Household Capital, was the biggest Australian reverse mortgage RMBS for a decade at A$263m ($172m), but the Aussie securitization market as a whole appears capable of teaching the European market a thing or two.
Meanwhile in CLOs, resets and refinancings were the dominant force in the US, particularly as triple-A spreads are stuck in the 135bp over Sofr range. It's better news for European managers, though, as third party equity appears to be back for good, at least for tier one managers.
