Paribas launched a highly unusual securitisation this week, parcelling 2,300 small business loans for Sodie SA, a subsidiary of French steelmaker Usinor whose mission is to promote employment in regions of France where the steel industry has contracted, putting people out of work. In the diversity of its exposure, the deal is most closely comparable to Deutsche's CORE collateralised loan obligation, which parcels very large numbers of loans to small and medium sized German businesses, and to Gerling Insurance Group's SECTRS transaction in March this year, which conveyed exposure to a reference portfolio of 92,000 European companies as a hedge for Gerling's credit insurance book.
July 16, 1999