Latest news
Latest news
Addition of 20 year veteran RMBS attorney David Sylofski to the firm will strengthen its structured finance practice
Investors want more ABS exposure after strong performance
Partnership should bolster non-agency mortgage lender's capacity to originate and securitize loans
More articles
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Landmark report addresses specific areas, and in doing so it provides the beleaguered market with a foundation for change
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Single regulator like SEC and help for securitization 'vital' for Europe's competitiveness
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Bank wants to grow leveraged capital markets alongside IG business
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CLO team’s senior figure is leaving for personal reasons
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Diana Reid to replace Michael Hutchins, who had been interim CEO since March
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Michael Guarda takes over DCM and syndicate
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Results of study for EU Commission calls for revival of securitization in Europe
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New CFO and treasurer promoted from within
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Former Uber exec aims to disrupt and innovate as Arc Analytics’ new CEO
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Christian Grane moves on to take up another role
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Arc Ratings’ sister company hires from tech world
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Replacement already in place after longstanding employee departs
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◆ Promising Risk Control paper ◆ Acer Tree returns to euro CLOs
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Risk Control's paper directs regulatory discussion at securitization's economic potential
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Sahil Chandiramani takes more senior role after nearly four years at the fintech
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Regulating securitization should be a matter of maximising its economic impact, not just simply preventing a crisis
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Huge looming maturities may look scary, but the CMBS market will chip away at the wall, rather than drive into it
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Alex Martin joins Milbank's alternative investment team after John Goldfinch's departure
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Elsewhere, Nuveen recruits new CLO MD and Arini promotes from within
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Natixis-owned investor takes on Ostrum’s €215m ABS portfolio and its managers
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Asset manager takes London specialist from CIFC amid increased hiring activity
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Pair of senior BofA bankers join different Apollo entities as CLO business grows
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The law firm is looking to beef up its ABS and CLO expertise
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Interim CFO returns to previous post at the firm
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Elsewhere, Volkswagen promotes from within for new head of ABS
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Interview with Lily Feng, founder of fine wine valuation and lending platform, Jera
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However, the asset class remains a fraction of insurers' portfolios due to punitive regulations
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The trader previously spent 15 years at Credit Suisse
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Alternative investment firm has over $9bn AUM
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Surprise elections in France could slow ABS issuance, but the more important long-term impact on regulation will emerge as the dust settles in the coming months
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Global ABS regulation panel 'most positive for 15 years'
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Avoid regret with this guide
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Other Scope ratings have been accepted since November with IT integration ‘expected shortly’
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Senior salesman to start new role in coming weeks
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Architect of 'stock and drop' RMBS scheme has joined the building society's investment arm
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FCA and PRA lay out new rules to take effect on November 1 but key questions deferred
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Jim Wiant has departed from the Danish credit investment firm's New York office
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Arlene Shaw sees middle-market CLOs as 'very efficient avenue' to finance private credit assets
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Christian Noyer has proposed that the safe savings asset that European leaders crave should be a securitization platform. But scepticism that this is a realistic project runs high
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Regulator clarifies and tweaks rules as it presses for November implementation
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Political leaders show interest as Enrico Letta and Christian Noyer feed them policy ideas
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Organiser of ABS East and Global ABS merges with operator of Global Borrowers' Forum and the Covered Bond Congress
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GlobalCapital takes you through the winners for Overall Bank, Private Securitization, and Deal of the Year
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New venture with Prytania Solutions could be useful benchmark for promising CLO ETF market
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CLO investor returns to Accunia after more than five years
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Executive had been central to top 10 EMEA bond franchise
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K-Indicator to give investors clearer picture of market performance
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Joshua White joins NatWest, Pepper appoints new UK managing director
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Rating agency expansion into booming private credit market continues
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S&P downgrades six tranches of legacy RMBS after discovering error, but disparity with Fitch should have raised alarm
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Joo Kim joins as partner from Cadwalader, bringing more than 23 years of experience
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Alan Rockwell and Heather Waters Borthwick join in New York, more additions likely
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Promotion signals markets push into Australia and New Zealand
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Fund comes as major private credit players increase their presence in asset-backed lending
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◆ UK BTL RMBS tightens ◆ CLO seniors eye 140bp ◆ Plus, a film debut on LinkedIn
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Top CLO law firm in ‘growth mode’ and will hire more, says partner
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◆ Glorious return for EU ABS ◆ BSL to bite back in CLOs ◆ Dilosk grievance
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Investment firm looking to increase its focus on the real estate sector in 'once-in-a-decade' environment
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Sharif Anbar-Colas has been with the asset manager since 2018
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Jeff Fields appointed to a newly created role at Atalaya Leasing
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◆ Europeans want UK RMBS ◆ ESMA perplexes investors ◆ CLO amortisation: a vanishing act
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Consultation says some investors not in favour of ‘dedicated and simplified templates’
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Fund will only invest in equity as the majority stakeholder, GlobalCapital understands
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◆ Flying start for UK RMBS ◆ Loan rally to scupper January CLO party ◆ Merv Hughes lookalike competition
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David Saitowitz's responsibilities will include investing in CLOs
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Consultation offers four potential options to simplify disclosure templates widely considered too onerous
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GlobalCapital's annual market quiz returns. Have you been paying close attention this year?
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Investors welcome efforts to harmonise ESG reporting but say the ultimate goal must be a comprehensive scoring system
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$49m of trades placed in first operational week
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Regulator warns about potential conflicts of interest but says report not driven by wrongdoing
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The law firm could grow the team further next year
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◆ Searching for an ABS 'greenium' ◆ Euro CLO pipeline building ◆ A new golfer in town?
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Market was key in helping UK Asset Resolution offload legacy collateral, even if some think it created the problem
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◆ Putting the AI in ABS ◆ Middle-market CLOs face more questions
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Trading tech firm will collaborate with Moody's Analytics
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Although it is incentivising issuance as US banks look to shore up balance sheets, the imminent regulation could end up being a ‘real drag’
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More initiatives to launch soon as almost half of market says it has already used chatbots for work
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Sumit Sasidharan will serve as the head of commercial real estate
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New European senior ABS fund was created in July, but held off media launch until portfolio was in shape, source said
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One of the two new co-heads of capital markets for the region will focus on asset finance and securitized products
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Scope Ratings is now the fifth external credit assessment institution to determine Eurosystem eligibility
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◆ Captive CLO equity teams race for funding ◆ Could there be regulatory reform in EU securitization next year? ◆ New York calling
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After years of slow progress and a failure to complete the project, stimulating the European ABS sector could be exactly what is needed
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The fund will invest across ABS, CLO and MBS sectors
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The pace of regulatory change coming from the Commission could damage US capital markets, says lawmaker Bill Hagerty
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UK regulator has shown a post-Brexit willingness to simplify rules
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Treasury official says financial firms should collaborate to fight state saboteurs and ransomware
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Ratings and research department headed up by Ana Arsov
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◆ PRA consultation paper provides further UK reg hints ◆ Life in European CLOs ◆ Babies in the office
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Changes proposed in paper on capital requirements tread carefully between Basel 3.1 standards and UK growth
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SRT-focused paper draws dividing lines with the EU
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UK fund sees distressed opportunities in US commercial real estate
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Take a close look at three emerging tech providers in capital markets, including AI and data platforms
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Rémi Kireche will focus on securitization, among other areas
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Investor group looks to promote greater collaboration and education within the market
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Ollie Waite will take a career break before deciding on his next venture
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Credit investor promotes senior portfolio manager, representative of firm’s proud women-driven business
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Banks to seek more capital relief before Basel III Endgame takes effect
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Piers Western was a well-respected CLO expert who had been at Commerz since 2009
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Issuers like Tesla return to programmatic issuance after seeing wider spreads than programmatic peers
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David Dwyer and Frank Tallerico join US securitization trade association
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Foreclosures could come without unemployment rise but RMBS will hope to ride it out
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Ronnie Jaber, co-head of Onex Credit, in an interview with GlobalCapital
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US issuers should address concerns over energy consumption if they want to maximize the potential of one of the sector's most promising assets
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He was a prominent figure in the securitization market before leading the bank's treasury function
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Spanish investment bank, based in London, adds to advisory headcount
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Former head goes to Natixis with structuring director promoted
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TwentyFour Asset Management's co-founder Rob Ford talks about his past, securitization's future and how, with plans to semi-retire, he will have more time for lunch
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Founding partners Rob Ford and Gary Kirk move to advisory roles
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Ex-CLO new issues head sets up own shop, McCormick heads to Scotia, BNPP promotes Khanna
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Annual Global ABS conference hasn’t mattered so much since the the fallout of the GFC
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Matthew Courey promoted to president following FSI strategic partnership
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Lakemore to provide equity funding for multiple CLOs in US
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Opportunities to buy floating rate paper at wide spreads before issuers stop coming are limited, investors are taking notice
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The wheels appear to be coming off the commercial real estate market but this is no run of the mill financial crisis — investors have had plenty of warning
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Aaron Scott joins after over four years at Paul Hastings
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Dmitrij Livitski hired as executive director
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Nikunj Gupta to leave after over seven years at bank
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CLO expert to lead global finance and real estate group amid growth in the sector
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Jimmy Wilson joins Japanese firm to help grow CLO and esoteric ABS businesses
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Stifel launches agency securitized products group with four former Credit Suisse bankers
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David Keys joined BNY Mellon as head of structured finance after 23 years at U.S. Bank
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Both hires to work in risk corporate securitization team
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Two MDs promoted in reshuffle
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Japanese bank lands SEB's former head of loan sales
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John Parker joins to head securitization trading
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Jacob Walton hired as Sona prepares to enter Europe's CLO market
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John Vibert will serve as president and CEO starting 2024
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Peter Knust joins law firm from BCLP
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Fiona Nelson leaves Funding Circle after less than two years
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Nuria Paredes was JP Morgan’s head of EMEA synthetic baskets
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Acquisition of Credit Suisse’s SPG will give the asset manager a flow of juicy assets
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Lack of nationwide programmes to promote ESG-related financing makes US-like progress difficult, lawyer says
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Christopher James leaves Lloyds after nearly seven years
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Credit Suisse says the transaction is designed to release capital and achieve significant risk reduction for the group
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Peter Cui to leave after nearly seven years at French bank
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Clarity is required as the sector grows, say panellists at the structured finance event in New York
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Karan Chabba joins asset manager from KLS Diversified
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Covered bond teams stretched by biggest quarter in 10 years
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UK law firm has hired Alexander Leff as renewable energy, project finance and tax partner in New York
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Mid-level employees receiving around 25% more to jump ship
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Japanese bank sets sights on aircraft ABS
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Bank poaches Jeana Curro from BlackRock
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Martin Sharkey joins as partner after six years at Dentons
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Senior recruit from Cadwalader to advise on ABS, MBS, CLOs
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Badrakhan to oversee expansion into new asset classes
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Natixis-owned private debt house builds CLO, liquid debt capacity as it opens Paris office
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Round of promotions includes two portfolio managers focusing on securitization
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Grady Frank to lead $3bn private credit investment business
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Matthew Moniot and Jonathan Imundo join Man Group as co-heads of CRS
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Texas-based CLO manager plans to issue deals in Europe under Trinitas brand
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Josh Soffer joins the manager after a career spent in tech and fixed income markets
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HilltopSecurities hired Tom Baurle to serve as managing director and investment banker, expanding its debt capital markets team. Baurle will focus on ABS, private debt originations and structured finance strategies across various sectors.
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A new level of harmonisation and simplicity in financial markets communication is on the horizon, according to supporters of the Common Domain Model — a coding framework that will allow bonds, repos and derivatives to be described in a single format, potentially making processing more efficient and less manual.
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The head of US CLO structuring at Barclays, Eric Glyck, has resigned to join Octagon Credit Investors, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Royal Dutch Shell and London asset manager Tramontana have created a carbon credit securitization product, forming a new asset class aimed at optimising the offsetting of carbon dioxide emissions. Tom Brown reports.
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Z Capital Credit Partners, the credit arm of Z Capital Group, has promoted a CLO portfolio manager in its investment team to managing director.
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The Federal Reserve kicked off its two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, with the officials deeply divided on when to make the move to tapering asset purchases. With no dot plot projections expected this time, sources are keeping a close eye on what Fed chairman Jerome Powell says, looking for hints about the central bank’s plans.
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A UK football club securitization has closed that offers investors exposure to future ticket sales. But sports securitizations, almost non-existent after the 2008 global financial crisis, have assumed a new, higher level risk in the eyes of many following the pandemic.
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The three-year restructuring plan for four Intu shopping centres is set to see cash poured into London, Nottingham and Glasgow retail hubs after the group collapsed into administration in June 2020. But CMBS noteholders are set to see yields recover to only 60% of the outstanding amount by the time of a likely asset sale, bringing into doubt the prospect of future shopping-centre securtiizations.
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Credit Suisse has promoted London-based Arun Cronin to be global co-head of CLOs, alongside New York-based co-head Brad Larson, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Apollo subsidiary Redding Ridge has hired Tom Frangione from Alcentra as it grows its assets under management and the number of CLOs it runs.
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Danish credit investor Capital Four has made three additions to its CLO and high yield business in the US.
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Japanese bank Mizuho has hired CLO specialist Nate Weber from Bank of Montreal Capital Markets as a managing director in its asset backed trading department.
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The European Commission signalled this week that it would extend regulation into many more aspects of sustainable finance, driving an agenda that could change the role of capital markets in society. But although responsible investing experts welcomed it, the complex package of at least 30 measures is likely to provoke a wide variety of reactions, from enthusiastic support to complaints that it is too slow and unambitious, to outright opposition. Jon Hay reports.
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Tough legacy mortgage securitizations are resisting the switch away from Libor, as the Financial Conduct Authority calls on issuers to contact investors before the six month deadline hits. A group of mortgage securitizations issued by defaulted Lehman Brothers pre-2008 are seen as particularly high risk.
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Orchard Global Asset Management has hired Rachit Prasad as a portfolio manager for its CLO team. Prasad will join after an 11 year stint as an ABS research analyst at Deutsche Bank.
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Bank of America's former Dubai-based head of Middle East and North Africa debt capital markets has relocated to New York, where he will be covering DCM for US financial institution clients.
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The UK government is launching a complete review of its securitization regulations in parallel with the European Union’s ambitions to reform the market. Sustainability, the 'simple, transparent and standardised' label, SME funding and risk retention are all under the microscope.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced new leadership appointments under the new acting director Sandra Thompson on Tuesday, kicking off a wave of people and policy changes to come in at the agency.
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After one of the busiest quarters for ABS since the financial crisis, many market participants are eyeing a short break in August in anticipation of a slower market. The combination of working-from-home culture, lack of travel opportunities and physical meetings has prevented many in the market from taking a break.
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Following release after his imprisonment for contempt of court, Rizwan Hussain has launched a new attack on legacy RMBS transactions managed by Bluestone Mortgages, purporting to have taken over as a director of the SPV and attempting to replace crucial transaction parties with his own entities. Whether he has authority to do so is not yet clear.
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Jefferies appointed Crescent Capital's former CLO head Melissa Weiler and Ellis Kirk Group's CEO Matrice Ellis Kirk to its board of directors, starting from July 1.
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ABS lawyers are asking issuers to resist taking advantage of a legal loophole left via a regulatory quirk, where a number of CLO and CMBS deals are technically exempt from switching data over to the securitization repositories approved by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Friday.
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Securitization is set to receive a sustainability makeover later in 2021 when the European Banking Authority finalises its mandate. Market participants are asking for better capital treatment to put ABS on a level with covered bonds, but others worry political influence could leave the market behind, writes Tom Brown.
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Deutsche Bank has hired Alex Danehy as head of US CLO syndication, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Danehy joins from JP Morgan, where he was an executive director responsible for CLO origination.
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Rhode Island Employees' Retirement System has allocated $250m to Sycamore Tree and Neuberger Berman to invest in CLO equity and mezzanine tranches, following a new strategy that targets CLOs rather than real estate investment trusts (Reits) and master limited partnership (MLPs).
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European banks are rushing to finalise the first synthetic ABS transaction to achieve a ‘simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) verification. The debut deal, which marks a turning point for the significant risk transfer market, has already been signed and is set to arrive in the coming months.
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The University Superannuation Scheme, one of the UK’s largest pension schemes, has hired BlackRock’s Janet Oram as head of asset-backed securities at its investment management arm.
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Matt Blake, director of treasury at Together Money, has left the specialist mortgage lender for a position as treasurer at Pepper Money.
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A senior securitized products banker at Barclays Investment Bank is moving to the buy-side after 19 years with the bank. He will be replaced by a senior banker from Credit Suisse
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The pace at which central banks are accelerating towards skewing monetary policy to support the fight against climate change was brought home this week by a speech by Isabel Schnabel, an executive board member at the European Central Bank, in which she went further than ever before in calling for strong action and hinted at how the ECB might do it.
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Generali is marketing the first green catastrophe bond, a €200m deal called Lion Re III laying off European windstorm and Italian earthquake risk. The structure takes its cue from the growing ESG risk transfer market for banks, which enhances the green impact of a given deal by recycling not just the funding received but the capital saved into green assets.
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The Green and Social Bond Principles organisation published the first new version of the Green Bond Principles since 2018 on Thursday. It strengthens the recommendations that issuers publish a bond framework and obtain an external review, and encourages issuers to communicate about their organisation-wide sustainability efforts, not just the assets linked to the labelled bond.
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Bank of America has set up an EMEA ESG strategic council chaired and led by three senior investment bankers, to intensify its effort to reduce its carbon footprint and manage its climate risks.
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The former head of US CLO syndication at Deutsche Bank, David Ryan, has been hired by Barclays as director on the CLO syndicate desk in the New York office.
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Eagle Point Credit Management, a specialist asset manager focused on investing in CLO securities, has hired Nate Morse as its new head corporate trader.
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The UK is reforming its treatment of special purpose vehicles in an attempt to make itself appear more business-friendly. However, in its attempts to open up the asset class, regulators could inadvertently tie up the market in red tape, as shown by its recent consultation over the possibility of including shares in ABS collateral.
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First Eagle Alternative Credit has hired Nishil Mehta as portfolio manager from Prospect Capital Management, where he was head of capital markets and a CLO portfolio manager.
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Companies with highly structured financial arrangements involving a combination of secured bonds and loans face a particularly arduous second half of the year as they grapple with the transition away from Libor.
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Greece has overtaken Italy as the biggest source of non-performing-loan ABS issuance in Europe, with banks stepping up issuance with a slew of transactions in 2021 as Italian institutions wind down their post-financial crisis backlog of bad debt.
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A CLO structurer has left Morgan Stanley to join HPS Investment Partners as a vice-president.
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The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has launched a series of surveys ‘to understand the potential conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives among participants in the leveraged loan and CLO markets’, inviting bank lenders, CLO investors, loan sponsors, and CLO managers to give them feedback.
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Partners Group is marketing Penta CLO 9, a new CLO with a score related to environmental, sustainable and governance factors, following three similar transactions. But market participants question whether ESG scores are likely to turn the CLO market green.
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Trade receivable securitization has seen a surge in activity on the back of the recovery of the global markets, as suppliers seek to take advantage of the reopening US and European economies. Major banks have been taking up market share left by the collapsed supply chain finance firm Greensill, two sources said.
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More details about the financing structure Daimler will use after its trucks and buses business is spun-off and listed are emerging. The demerger will create two separate capital markets operations out of a company that has been Europe’s second largest corporate bond issuer of the past decade.
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The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) has released its hotly anticipated report on European securitization. But market participants are calling it a missed opportunity, pointing out that it fails to address recommendations made by the High Level Forum on the Capital Markets Union to develop the market.
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Dagmar Kent Kershaw, former head of ICG's credit business, has joined the board of Axa Investment Managers' listed Volta Fund, which invests largely in CLO equity, alongside risk transfer deals, CLO debt and ABS.
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The Global ABS conference will be returning to the venue it occupied just after the financial crisis poleaxed the securitization industry, London’s Edgeware Road, as travel worries and ever-changing rules and restrictions ruled out running Europe’s biggest capital markets conference in its usual Barcelona location.
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Bank of America has poached a CLO structurer from JP Morgan to add to its CLO team.
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RBC Capital Markets has tapped a CLO director at Citi to lead its CLO structuring desk.
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UK specialist lender Paratus AMC is up for sale, GlobalCapital understands. If a deal is done, it will open a new chapter in the history of one of the best known names in European securitization, and change the ownership structure for a host of RMBS deals.
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The Senate voted to overturn the 'true lender' law, a rule which makes it easy for non-bank marketplace lenders to originate loans through banks. Though the rule is unlikely to be rescinded, the efforts to roll it back show that pressure will remain on marketplace lenders, as states challenge federal regulations that they see as infringing on their licensing and usury laws.
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Income Research + Management, a private fixed income asset management firm in Boston, added Ken Johnson and Philip Machoka as vice-president and portfolio manager to expand its client service team.
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Noah Breslow, OnDeck’s former chairman and chief executive officer, has left the company to join Bain Capital Ventures as an operating partner. The news of his departure comes nearly seven months after Breslow sold OnDeck to Enova and after key management personnel, including the head of corporate communications, have exited the company.
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Peter Zirwes, the highly regarded head of corporate finance at Daimler, Europe’s second biggest corporate bond issuer, will retire at the end of August. This follows an eventful career that has spanned bouts of transformative M&A.
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The European Banking Authority has published a new version of its NPL data templates, which are supposed to serve as a standardised way for buyers and sellers of non-performing portfolios to exchange information.
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Apollo subsidiary Redding Ridge has boosted its CLO platform, hiring Patrick McCarthy from JP Morgan, and Andrew Croshaw from law firm Cadwalader.
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BNP Paribas has hired a senior securitized product banker to work on ABS origination and structuring.
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WhiteStar Asset Management’s expansion into London could include the purchase of an existing CLO platform, according to chief executive Gibran Mahmud. The Texas-based firm, run by the former Highland Capital Management team, announced last week that it had opened a London office headed by executive chairman Gordon Neilly.
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Eagle Point Credit Management has added Sam Yoon to its CLO investment team to assist in CLO debt trading and portfolio management. Yoon will report to Dan Ko, principal and portfolio manager at Eagle Point.
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UK government is introducing a debt freeze for suffers from mental health problems, introducing a 60 day “breathing space” where lenders will be prevented from communicating with borrowers who are in arrears. Mental health has also come to the forefront of debate around how to help so-called ‘mortgage prisoners’ stuck on high interest rates after the financial crisis.
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Former Barclays structurer Fiona Nelson is joining SME lender Funding Circle's treasury operations, working in the structuring and execution team.
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York Capital's CLO business has struck a strategic deal with Kennedy Lewis, which will see the manager rebranding to become 'Generate Advisors', and Kennedy Lewis commit $200m of equity to the shelf.
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One of the corporate bond market’s most experienced funding officials is to leave the market next month.
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Market participants will embark in the coming weeks on the difficult task of working out how to use the European Union’s sustainable finance Taxonomy, after the first criteria were published this week. In doing so, they will be conscious that the smooth tide of green finance is now breaking against the hard reality of power politics and resistance by fossil fuel industries — a clash that is rocking the Taxonomy’s credibility, writes Jon Hay.
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Sources in the CLO market have expressed doubt over the CLO trading platform known as Project Octopus launched last week by Citi and Bank of America, questioning whether the platform will succeed in expanding to a critical mass with enough other banks involved. However, some active in the nascent electronic trading market, such as KopenTech, welcome the venture as an endorsement of their vision.
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WhiteStar Asset Management, the Texas-based credit manager which sponsors the Trinitas CLO shelf, has opened a London office, appointing Gordon Neilly to run it as executive chairman of WhiteStar Asset Management Europe.
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Piraeus Financial Holdings, the Greek holding company which owns Piraeus Bank, has launched a capital raise to give it the firepower needed to offload non-performing loans and has already secured enough demand on one morning of book-building to cover the deal.
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Matt Cooke is joining Santander as head of securitization later this year, GlobalCapital understands, following his resignation from Lloyds where he held the same role.
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Matt Cooke, head of the securitized products group at Lloyds, has resigned from the bank, GlobalCapital understands.
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Hectic negotiations and lobbying are going on at the European Commission about the Taxonomy of Sustainable Economic Activities, in the last day before it is due to publish the detailed rules. Key countries including Germany have changed their positions, GlobalCapital can reveal, while supporters of gas and nuclear power are digging in. Battlelines are now being drawn over the timing.
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BlueBay Asset Management has hired a portfolio manager to its structured credit and CLO management team, bringing in Tom Mowl from his previous position as senior portfolio manager at Challenger Investment Partners.
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The European Commission is set to put forward a new solution to the intense battle over the EU's sustainable finance Taxonomy, between green finance supporters and EU member states that want to safeguard their plans to use gas, GlobalCapital has learned. This would appear to involve leaving gas out of the sustainable category of the Taxonomy, as environmentalists have demanded, and making a "separate legislative proposal" to deal with gas and nuclear power.
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Private equity "vulture funds" are tightening their grip on Ireland after a Covid-19 parliamentary bill opened up more mortgages for repossession. But legal practitioners are working with non-profits to stop PE firms from “scraping the barrel” of defaulted mortgage debt.
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Fairwater Capital, an alternative investment boutique, has hired Eric de Sangues, formerly of Chenavari Investment Managers, as head of structured credit.
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Head of US CLO new issue syndication David Ryan has left Deutsche Bank after 17 years working at the bank.
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With the UK opening up high street retail on Monday, investors are said to be eyeing retail real estate for opportunities. But the market, hit hard by the pandemic, will be slow to recover – with Newcastle’s Metrocentre becoming a prominent example of the future for shopping centres after the pandemic.
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Long-awaited amendments to European securitization law come into force on Friday, which should make non-performing loans securitization easier at a time when bad debt levels are set to rocket. Tom Brown reports.
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BNP Paribas has hired a banker from Credit Suisse to work in its non-performing loans team, as the French bank increasingly targets securitization business in the sector.
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German fintech lender Auxmoney has nabbed another round of funding from Citigroup and Chenavari Investment Managers, receiving €250m in total.
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The G20’s Financial Stability Board is cranking up its action on climate change again now that Donald Trump is no longer US president. This will feed the hopes of some sustainable finance supporters who want the FSB to drive progress on issues including environmental accounting.
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The UK government is planning to tighten the energy efficiency ratings required for buy-to-let mortgages, phasing in the changes through to 2028, but some mortgage lenders are implementing the rules early. The result could mean more collateral for green structured finance transactions as well as a lower risk of default.
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Morgan Lewis has added Steven Becker and Alex Velinsky to its structured transactions team, bolstering a practice the firm has been growing recently. Both partners join from Hunton Andrews Kurth.
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Arc Ratings has appointed Stefan Augustin as co-head of structured finance of ARC Ratings, heading up the firm’s European business.
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The UK is overhauling its securitization regime following its exit from the EU in a bid to become a more competitive destination to host special purpose vehicles. The move comes as EU authorities sign the latest amendment to securitization rules, splitting the two jurisdictions further apart and causing headaches for issuers wanting to sell into both markets. Tom Brown reports.
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The European Central Bank has given itself the mission of creating a liquid non-performing loan (NPL) marketplace. Only this time, it’s online. Real estate managers like Prelios are attempting to remove barriers to NPL sales, but Europe’s multiple jurisdictions present legal hurdles.
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Vaibhav Piplapure, widely known as VP, has signed on for a second stint in KKR’s credit business, returning to the firm as a London-based managing director sourcing asset-based finance and speciality lending opportunities.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to revive the ‘ability to pay’ rule, rescinded in the Trump era, a move which will tighten its grip on payday lenders. While it may be beneficial to have deceptive payday lending practices eliminated, the new rule may stifle the growth of speciality finance lenders and take away a valuable source of funding for borrowers, sources say.
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The UK government is considering changing its securitization rules to allow shares and equity to be securitized, one of many proposals regulators are considering in order to make the sector more competitive. The announcement comes close to the EU’s finalisation of its securitization amendments, which has split the two regulatory regimes following the UK's departure from the bloc.
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The European Parliament has passed amendments to the STS Regulation and changes to the Capital Requirement Regulation (CRR) after a tax dispute almost shut Australian investors out of European ABS.
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Alternative investment firm Angelo Gordon has hired two managing directors in its latest effort to bolster the firm’s structured credit investment strategies. The new hires will work on expanding the firm’s residential mortgage and consumer debt businesses.
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Goldman Sachs has been offering UK specialist lenders terms for mortgage warehouses, in a radical shift in securitized products strategy for the US investment bank, which has concentrated most of its recent primary markets efforts on principal deals. The move puts it into competition with commercial banks with bigger balance sheets and cheaper capital, but could send waves through the sector.
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NatWest Markets is offering warehouse terms for new CLOs again, reflecting the reorganisation of the bank’s operations and an increased focus on sponsor financing for the UK bank.
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This week 35 investors with $8.5tr of assets — many of them UK and Nordic pension funds — launched the Net Zero Investment Framework, a primer for investors wanting to decarbonise their portfolios. Faith Ward, chair of the Institutional Investors’ Group on Climate Change, answers some key questions for GlobalCapital about why the Framework is important and how it will be implemented.
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The Senate Banking Committee approved the nomination of Gary Gensler as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Rohit Chopra as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing the two picks by US president Joe Biden to advance to the Senate floor. The restoration of consumer protection initiatives removed under the Trump administration is expected to follow a successful confirmation by Chopra.
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Barclays has appointed a former C-suite executive to run private side activities in its asset-backed finance group, following the departure of Cecile Hillary to become deputy treasurer at Lloyds Banking Group.
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Danish credit asset management boutique Capital Four is expanding in the US and has hired former MidOcean CLO portfolio manager Jim Wiant to establish and lead the US business. Wiant has been appointed CEO of US Capital Four and portfolio manager. He will be based in the New York office.
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Lawyers for struggling supply chain finance firm Greensill argued in court that over 50,000 jobs could be at risk from its collapse, precipitated by the withdrawal of credit insurance. But experts in the sector with knowledge of Greensill’s exposures argue that even Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Alliance empire could come out ahead.
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Barclays has structured a new mortgage master issuer vehicle, raising the prospects of a return to RMBS funding for a bank which has been absent from the market for nearly a decade. The new vehicle uses the same revolutionary technology present in Coventry Building Society’s Economic Master Issuer deal, which slashes the time, cost and complexity of running these structures.
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The synthetic risk transfer market helped some of Europe’s biggest banks dodge loan losses last year, with Barclays saving more than £300m and Deutsche at least €150m. But the backdrop last year led to investors taking a tougher line on writing new credit protection, steering clear of pools with limited disclosure and hoping to dodge the most damaged sectors.
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The complexity of CLO documentation, and the need for easy access to deal info is encouraging tech providers to step into the breach and offer solutions to simplify the time-consuming processes of CLO investing. As managers adapt their deals to handle the fallout of the pandemic, good tools to handle documentary complexity have become all the more important.
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Securitizations with the ‘simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) label have definitively started pricing better than non-STS deals for the first time since the framework’s launch in 2019, said Santander managing director Steve Gandy, speaking at Afme’s 12th Annual Spanish Capital Markets Virtual Conference.
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Fintech asset manager Pagaya hired Peter Silberstein as head of capital development, the latest addition to its asset management division. Pagaya has added five team members in the last six months, including head of originations and head of structured products.
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Tikehau Capital has appointed Christoph Zens from Commerzbank as head of the firm’s CLO business, replacing Debra Anderson who is set to retire in the second quarter of 2021.
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Boudewijn Dierick, BNP Paribas’ head of ABS and covered bonds, is leaving the bank to join Auxmoney, a German consumer lender which set up a €500m warehouse with BNP Paribas in November.
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The EU Commission is rushing to untangle legislation that would have stopped EU investors from buying Australian securitizations or covered bonds, after the country ended up on the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.
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NPL Markets, which offers access to a trading ecosystem for distressed and illiquid loans, has appointed a handful of senior advisors.
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Allen & Overy has hired White & Case veteran Jake Mincemoyer as head of its US leveraged finance practice, based in New York.
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Eagle Point Credit Management, a specialist asset manager focused on investing in CLO securities and portfolio debt securities, has hired Seth Weinstein as director of business development, a newly created position.
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JP Morgan is opening warehouse lines for UK mortgage origination, ending a prolonged absence from a core part of the European securitization market for the US giant — a prohibition said to have been mandated by senior figures in the bank’s management team.
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Hoist Finance is, unlike most of its competitors, a bank that is hoovering up non-performing assets, at a time when banking supervisors are laser-focused on cutting European bank exposures to those very same assets. That should be a problem for Hoist, whose whole business is based around purchasing NPL portfolios from other banks, but it’s a problem which it has been able to solve using securitization.
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Chuka Umunna joins JP Morgan — Deloitte hires another FIG banker — JP Morgan AM appoints transition bond expert
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The UK’s Universities Superannuation Scheme Investment Management (USSIM), the biggest pension fund in the country, is looking to break into the ABS market.
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US insurer Kuvare Holdings has hired Jason Powers, former co-head of the US CLO business at Wells Fargo Securities, to run its credit investments team. Powers is the second CLO expert to join Kuvare in as many weeks, following the recent hire of Jason Merrill.
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Barclays CLO and loan strategist Geoffrey Horton will move to the New York office after spent two years at Barclays based in London, according to a CLO source.
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Investment advisory firm National Investment Services has appointed Stephen Smitley as a portfolio manager focused on municipals and structured products.
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John McElravey has joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as a markets specialist as of February 8. The capital markets veteran joins from First XV Partners and previously Wells Fargo, where he was a lead ABS research analyst.
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Debra Anderson, head of Tikehau Capital’s CLO business, is finishing her notice period before retirement. She joined the company in 2014, and will be concluding her financial career after 34 years in the sector.
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HSBC's Henry to retire — European Commission borrows IR and funding officials from EIB — Paterson joins CQS
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'Bowie bonds' were a pioneering innovation in the 1990s, allowing David Bowie to monetise his royalty revenues up front. But few artists ended up following his lead. Since the streaming revolution swept the music industry, however, securitizing songs has become more viable once again.
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Marble Point has hired former Seix Advisors chief executive Bob Sherman in a newly created position of global director of strategic development.
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Bob Paterson, former credit sales head at Lloyds, has joined hedge fund CQS as portfolio manager in its securitization group.
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Cairn Capital, the alternative credit asset management firm in which Mediobanca has a majority stake, has agreed a deal to buy and merge with Bybrook Capital.
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AGL Credit Management hired David Preston, the former head of CLO and ABS research team at Wells Fargo Securities laid off by the bank last year. Preston has been appointed on Monday as head of structured credit research at AGL, reporting to CEO and CIO Peter Gleysteen and COO Wynne Comer.
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Conor Downey, a veteran of the CMBS and commercial real estate markets, has left Paul Hastings to join Gunner Cooke, a law firm that operated letting partners keep all of their earnings after paying a flat fee into a central pot.
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Natixis on Monday promoted Peter Cui to head of structured credit syndicate in its European business, replacing Dimitris Papadopoulos who left to run CLO origination and syndication at Credit Suisse in September last year.
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Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has hired a head of origination in its direct lending group, following the firm's multi-billion push into private credit in partnership with Qatar Investment Authority.
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Rohit Chopra has been named the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, putting an end to three years of deregulation and kicking off an era of aggressive consumer protection. The ABS market is keeping a close eye on Chopra’s key plans, which include restoring the bureau’s ability to start its own investigations and establishing a new credit reporting agency.
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Fidelity International has hired a team of 10 private credit specialists from MeDirect Bank, in its first foray into European private debt.
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Agora, the end-to-end debt capital markets start-up, has appointed Filippo Mattia Ginanni as its head of structured products and EMTNs.
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The impact of coronavirus on economies has led to extraordinary help being granted to banks and their customers. But this brings the risk of problems on banks' balance sheets being hidden, according to William Coen, former secretary general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
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Natixis promotes DCM bankers — Powell quits IFAD job — NatWest Markets makes Peberdy, Donaldson and Manwaring's positions permanent
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The first CLO to comply with both diverging regimes in the UK and the EU has closed, marking a post-Brexit point of no return for the securitization market.
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The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) has voted through regulation to harmonise the secondary market for NPLs across Europe, pushing through a key stage of its Action Plan aimed at rebuilding the European economy post-pandemic.
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Tom Rutledge, fixed income strategist at Magnetar Capital, has left the company to join Wapanda, a startup based in New York focused on the mobility industry.
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It’s been almost a year since a Dutch tax ruling sent CLO managers scurrying to Ireland to avoid a VAT charge. But with the changes coming into action in 2021, some CLO managers are leaving their vehicles in the Netherlands and taking their chances on a ruling from the supreme court.
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A blue Senate is posing a new threat to the ABS market, as regulators and lawmakers are set to turn their focus to consumer protection. Sherrod Brown, a critic of big banks and a loud consumer rights advocate, is now favourite to chair the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which could lead to a stream of headline risks for lenders.
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Onex Credit Partners has appointed Conor Daly to head its European CLO franchise, building out its capacity to tap into the European securitization market in 2021.
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STS third-party verifier Prime Collateralised Securities (PCS) has hired Harry Noutsos as a managing director in market outreach.
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Loynes extends syndicate responsibilities at Crédit Agricole — CS's equity sales head to join Citi — Flori starts at CEB funding team
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Juan-Carlos Martorell, who jointly ran the risk transfer and structured solutions group at Mizuho, and before that, Lazard, has joined Munich Re Markets to work on origination, structuring and risk distribution, according to LinkedIn.
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Law firm Latham & Watkins hired Alison Haggerty to join its New York office as a partner in the capital markets practice.
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The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has praised new framework for on-balance sheet securitizations in Europe, but warned that it may also make deals more costly and complicated.
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During spring and summer of 2020, mortgage borrowers in the UK took full advantage of the chance for a payment holiday, with some non-conforming mortgage portfolios seeing payments stop on up to 40% of loans. But investors in RMBS stayed largely sanguine, despite the looming rise in unemployment and the potential for holidays to turn into defaults. Could the moratorium make a comeback in the next crisis? Tom Brown reports.
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In tumultuous times, the EU’s Capital Markets Union project continues to plod on. As it it is limited by member states not harmonising certain laws, this is not all the European Commission’s fault, but that hasn’t stopped criticism that the executive body has underdelivered. Jasper Cox reports.
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Nick Jansa turns up at Canadian pension fund — Rocket man touches down at Citi — Credit Suisse hires Gaurav Arora
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The European Commission’s plans to tackle the mountain of non-performing loans that are expected next year as government support schemes roll off have been criticised as unambitious. They have been dismissed as containing little beyond a review of proposals that have already been unveiled.
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Brian Good, a veteran of leveraged finance investing and a key figure in implementing ESG factors in investing process, is set to leave First Eagle Alternative Credit in early January, according to people familiar with the matter. Good will remain an ESG consultant at the Boston-based credit manager.
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Sculptor Capital Management has promoted managing director Josh Eisenberger to co-head of its US CLO team, overseeing portfolio management and credit underwriting, according to people familiar with the matter. Eisenberger will work alongside Peter Polanskyj, co-head of the US CLO team with a focus on structuring and origination.
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A G30 committee led by Mario Draghi and Raghuram Rajan has outlined proposals for governments looking to deal with the surging corporate distress caused by the pandemic. The paper, published on Monday, recommends better restructuring laws, equity infusions, business interruption reinsurance and targeted credit for the most vulnerable companies.
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When the Brexit transition period ends on December 31, ABS deals listed on EU stock exchanges will become private deals for UK investors, and vice versa for UK deals. The change could ease the regulatory burden for some investors active in the market.
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The European Parliament and Council have agreed rules that will set the stage for securitization to play a role in helping European banks dig their way out of an impending surge in defaulted loans. The Parliament has added sustainability criteria to the final amendments.
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Issuers are looking to tweak securitizations with UK entities in order to avoid them falling outside the EU’s ‘simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) criteria once the Brexit transition period ends on December 31.
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France and Germany will end up as the largest countries in the EU's capital markets after Brexit, including in primary equity and debt markets, according to new research from the think tank New Financial.
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The UK's national infrastructure bank set to be launched by the government could focus on a range of green investment opportunities, including setting up a scheme like the US's Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) model.
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Changes to the Volcker rule allowing US CLOs to hold bonds as well as loans ought to survive the shift to a new administration, but market participants will be counting the days and hoping the changes, enacted at the beginning of October, aren’t caught up in a Congressional review.
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Covid-19 has transformed the secondary market in securitization in various ways — from forcing the market to take trading online to shifting the peak trading hours. Panellists at ABS East this week said the changes enacted during the spring sell-offs are here to stay, and traders have already begun to adapt to the new normal.
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Institutional investors are on the verge of a huge opportunity in private debt, as assets migrate out of the banking system, according to Thierry Adant, who joined Newmarket Capital this week as its chief investment officer.
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With Joe Biden as president, and a split Congress, the prospect of sweeping progressive change and a comprehensive stimulus package has been dampened. However, the market expects to see substantial progress on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) front and Libor transition, despite the deep divide in government.
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Law firm Alston & Bird has hired a three person CLO team from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
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Green bond specialists have criticised the buildings section of the European Union’s proposed sustainable finance Taxonomy as impractical, creating unhelpful incentives and excluding most bank financing, including green senior unsecured, RMBS and covered bonds.
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Felix Fletcher has joined Investec’s power and infrastructure finance team as a senior coverage banker, originating for lending and advisory business across the group.
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The Basel Committee has backed down from tough new changes which could have raised the costs of financing non-performing loan portfolios, allowing banks to use external ratings to assess the risk of NPL securitizations.
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Fitch Ratings appointed Michael Paladino as the new head of structured finance for North America, its latest update from a global reshuffle.
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The European Banking Authority has lifted the spirits of those working in the significant risk transfer (SRT) market by suggesting that call options and early termination rights should not disqualify a transaction from achieving SRT recognition, pushing back on proposals made by European Parliament members.
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Student loan forgiveness has been one of the main pillars of US president-elect Joe Biden’s election campaign, worrying student loan securitization specialists in the sector since early this year. With Democrat Biden’s inauguration around the corner, market participants are scrambling to prepare for new regulations that could impact their student loan ABS investments.
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An ESG framework for the European securitization market is a noble aim but the middle of this pandemic is not the time to implement it. The European Parliament needs to take its time and make sure such a regime is built to last, and not throw it in alongside emergency legislation.
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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has launched a new platform dedicated to listing all securitizations which qualify as ‘simple, transparent and standardised’, preparing the UK securitization market for the end of the Brexit transition period.
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Schroders has closed a new private credit fund, which will use a mix of securitized bonds, warehouse lines, direct loans and other instruments to target dislocated opportunities as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic plays out in credit markets.
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Goldman Sachs has appointed new heads of its UK investment banking and EMEA equity capital markets businesses.
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The securitization market is pushing back against proposals in the European Parliament to tack a green framework for ABS deals onto existing discussions about NPL and synthetic securitizations that were supposed to be rapid-fire amendments to help the market fight off Covid-induced economic woes. Tom Brown reports.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued its final capital rule on Wednesday, mandating more capital for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they exit conservatorship on a ‘sound capital footing’. The agency’s progress towards privatisation could be limited by the likelihood that President-elect Joe Biden will switch out FHFA boss Mark Calabria for a Democratic pick.
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Investment firm SCIO Capital has appointed three ABS professionals to its newly founded advisory board, reuniting a group of Deutsche Bank veterans who worked at the bank in the early 2000s.
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The European Court of Auditors has said that the EU’s Capital Markets Union still needs a lot of work and that obstacles to capital flowing across borders often relate to national laws. It also did not see signs of growth in the securitization market.
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The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to pass a package of amendments to the securitization framework aimed at freeing up bank balance sheets and increasing lending to the real economy. The so-called "quick fixes" were left largely unchanged, helping the proposals push quickly on to the trilogue process.
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US president-elect Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan is a dialled down version of what Democratic candidates were proposing on the campaign trail in the run up to the 2020 election. But rather than focus on the incoming president’s priorities, observers should be thinking about the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the $1.6tr of outstanding student debt.
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The European Central Bank is offering renewed support to the idea of the EU creating a ‘bad bank’ or an asset management company to manage a flood of non-performing loans engulfing European banks, fuelling expectations that this will be part of the European Commission’s forthcoming NPL strategy. Jon Hay and Owen Sanderson report.
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Alantra, the boutique investment bank in Spain, wants to expand its securitization franchise beyond its existing strengths in NPL deals, boosting its position as an advisor for specialist lenders in performing credit and structurer of risk transfer deals for Europe’s smaller banks. Francesco Dissera, who started at the firm in mid-October, will lead the team’s growth efforts.
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The Alternative Credit Council (ACC) has recommended allowing CLOs to obtain a ‘simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) certification to increase the flow of funding to European borrowers. Investors have pushed back on such proposals, however, citing the heavy due diligence needed to invest in STS deals.
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Francesco Dissera, head of securitization at Banco Santander, is joining Alantra’s newly created securitization team.
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The ECON committee of the European Parliament has pushed back a meeting to agree on proposed amendments to the securitization market, making it unlikely that the UK will be able to adopt the same measures before Brexit. The divergence could pin ABS as the first capital market to see significant divisions between the UK and the EU after the two entities separate.
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Jefferies smashed its way into the European CLO primary market this year, hiring a team from the market’s top ranked arranger, Citi, and igniting a hiring merry-go-round. But the boutique bank doesn’t have the balance sheet muscle of its commercial rivals, and observers questioned how it planned to compete in the commoditised world of warehouse lending. Now however, GlobalCapital understands it has sourced external funding and has at least one warehouse already in the works.
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The newly established European Guarantee Fund has greenlit a further €1bn lending for risk sharing products, allowing the EIB to continue investing in significant risk transfer (SRT) transactions to support European SMEs.
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Petros PACE Finance, a commercial property-assessed clean energy lender, added Jerry Ellis to the business development team in its New York office. The move comes ahead of New York's expected approval of the C-PACE bill, enabling commercial property owners to tap PACE financing for new construction projects.
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Nearwater Liquid Markets has set up a third ABCP conduit which will buy only US Treasuries, repoing them with Barclays, in a move that would help the UK-based bank manage its access to high quality collateral. The new vehicle joins existing structures Nearwater has set up with BNP Paribas and with JP Morgan.
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The European Commission is facing pushback from the European Parliament over it turning to synthetic securitization — a market that still echoes the 2008 crisis for many legislators — to boost the ABS market and repair Europe’s economy in the aftermath of Covid-19. Tom Brown reports.
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ESM's Ruhl seconded to European Commission — Hinterkircher to retire — JP Morgan offers front office investment banking apprenticeships
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Kevin Haines has joined non-bank originator Bedford Row Capital in order to establish ESG processes.
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The European Union’s formation of its Platform on Sustainable Finance last week marks a new phase in responsible investing. Over the past four years or so, the most influential thinkers in the market, such as the Principles for Responsible Investing, have been quietly moving back to an older interpretation of what RI means: considering the effects of investment choices on others.
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Concerns around disclosure of mortgage forbearance figures and payment holidays led to deals scheduled for issuance earlier in 2020 being delayed to later in the year, as issuers feared securitization investors having access to information not widely disseminated to other investors.
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Fitch Ratings has named North America head Rui Pereira as the global group head of structured finance and covered bonds as part of a global reshuffling.
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The European Commission released a new action plan for its Capital Markets Union project on Thursday, prompting many observers to urge the EU to crack on with the proposals, after the CMU has taken years to implement.
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The Court of Appeal ruled last week that Rizwan Hussain’s 12 month prison term for contempt of court would stand, leaving the controversial former banker incarcerated after a legal fight over unpaid bills for a London flat rental.
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The adverse market refinance fee came under fire in a hearing this week, during which House policy makers characterised it as last-minute and poorly explained. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mark Calabria emphasized that the fee is necessary, and the only alternative would be to receive funding from Congress before the December implementation date.
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Credit Suisse has teamed up with its biggest shareholder to launch a private credit lending platform, bringing to fruition a plan that been beset by delays and high profile departures.
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Credit Suisse has hired Dimitris Papadopoulos as a managing director from Natixis to run origination and syndication of CLOs in EMEA.
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The UK should be seen as the “poster child” of the transition from inter-bank offered rates (Ibors) to risk-free rates, said a spokesperson from the Financial Conduct Authority, speaking at Global ABS 2020 on Wednesday, who urged the ABS market to turn towards solving the problem of legacy issuance.
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The UK has an opportunity to change key aspects of the Securitization Regulation once it leaves the European Union to the benefit of investors and issuers, said speakers at IMN’s Global ABS 2020 virtual conference on Tuesday.
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GlobalCapital and Afme convened a virtual roundtable to tackle the biggest issues facing securitization as the pandemic crisis continues. While other capital markets and the wider economy are reeling from the economic fallout stemming from Covid-19, European securitization is undergoing a regulatory rejuvenation, as the European Commission turns towards structured products as a solution to the coming wave of NPLs. Meanwhile, the market for synthetic ABS is being given a second look to help free bank balance sheets across Europe and spur lending to the real economy. Over the summer, the market saw the report from the senior forum on the Capital Markets Union, which included a number of recommendations on regulatory adjustments to improve the functioning of securitization in Europe. More recently the European Commission put forward a capital markets economic recovery package including measures related to securitization. The Commission has proposed extending the STS framework to synthetic securitizations or on-balance-sheet securitizations. The Commission has also put forward proposals to remove regulatory obstacles to the securitization of NPLs including changes to the regulatory capital treatment.
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The European Commission’s proposed new approach to non-performing loan securitization may encourage more deals to come out in fully placed format, accelerating development of the market. But the revised rules still hurt banks which hold part of the structures, and which form the vast majority of the market today, as the Commission took its lead from the Basel Committee rather than its own regulators.
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MEPs have asked the European Commission to come up with a legislative proposal for a new class of bank debt, known as ‘European Secured Notes’, as they push the executive to fast track its work on establishing a Capital Markets Union.
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Wartchow heads to Pemberton — Barclays names permanent equities heads — Bonilla joins Kartesia
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Nat Hoopes is leaving the Marketplace Lending Association (MLA) to join online lender Upstart as vice president and head of public policy and regulatory affairs. The newly created role will focus on increasing Upstart’s presence in Washington, helping policy makers understand the benefits of alternative lending.
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Connecticut-based Nassau Corporate Credit is starting a European CLO operation led by former Ellington portfolio managers Paul Meloche and Hekeani Mathieu. The new business will buy CLO liabilities from third parties as well as running its own CLOs.
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Nassau Asset Management has hired Michael Tamasco to oversee global business development, enhance client engagement and expand the firm’s third-party asset management platform.
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The publication of final rules on data disclosure for securitizations in the EU last Thursday ought to have been the last step in a long journey for the industry, but uncertainties and controversies over the rules remain.
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Kartesia has hired Lizeth Bonilla to join its structured credit team, expanding the firm’s CLO investment capabilities.
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The governments of the UK and the Netherlands are considering tax changes that will impact buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage origination in each country, hitting the two largest markets for BTL RMBS.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has delayed the implementation date of the adverse market refinance fee to December 1, following a wave of criticism from mortgage market participants. With more time to prepare before implementation, sources say the fee is a logical move on the part of the agencies to allow all players in the market to benefit from low mortgage rates, as well as shore up capital to cover losses stemming from the pandemic.
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Two of the biggest sustainable finance organisations, the PRI representing investors and WBCSD for companies, are putting their heads together to try to solve two of the thorniest issues impeding progress in the field.
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The European Central Bank has requested that Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena raise at least €250m of tier two capital before the end of this year, as part of the conditions of its sale of non-performing loans to Amco. Analysts say the bank might have to pay as much as a 9% coupon on the bond.
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The Federal Reserve announced on Thursday that it will allow inflation to run higher than the long running 2% target, a long awaited and historic shift in monetary policy that marks the start of a new era that will enable the Fed to keep rates low for longer.
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Pons goes to Axa — ECM's Balt heads to alt plastic firm — Esteve joins Barclays
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CLO trader Olivier Pons has left BNP Paribas’ secondary trading desk after 15 years with the bank, moving to an investment manager.
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The coronavirus pandemic has led to tensions between whole business ABS issuers and investors, amid wrangling over management fees. While investors worry that waiving fees that issuers pay to the corporate parent may mask true risk in the deals, issuers argue it is critical to preserve liquidity at a time of unprecedented corporate distress.
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James Benamor called a second shareholder vote in four months on Thursday to replace the board of Amigo Holdings, the troubled UK guarantor loan company he founded in 2005, after the board rejected his proposals — including reappointing him as CEO.
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The Colorado attorney general reached a settlement with marketplace lenders Avant and Marlette Funding on Tuesday that enables the lenders to keep working with partner banks under safe harbour provisions if they comply with rules set out by the state. Market participants said the settlement is a clear win for online lenders, as it brings legal certainty, and it may guide other states in resolving “true lender” issues.
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Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has hired Charles Pesant as partner in the securitization practice group and in the corporate department in New York.
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UK politicians should prepare for mortgage holidays becoming a political hot potato after borrowers who took payment holidays just-in-case realise that their financial well-being may not be as unscathed as they first anticipated.
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Amigo’s estranged founder wants to return to Britain’s biggest guarantor loans provider, floating the possibility of another shareholder vote, after selling more than 40% of the company, reducing his stake to below 20%.
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A new Brazilian law is set to boost credit card ABS securitizations from non-bank lenders, helping the alternative sector to thrive despite the economic fallout from coronavirus.
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Supply chain finance company Greensill has hired Peter Charles as vice-chairman of distribution and Dolph Habeck as managing director, head of distribution of the Americas, the company told GlobalCapital.
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NatWest Markets has restructured its divisions and given them new leadership. It is also moving some UK corporate-focused bankers over to the ring-fenced bank.
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Real estate investment firm Toorak Capital Partners has hired Kevin Tatro as head of asset management and reporting and Stephen Tyde, Jr, as head of special servicing.
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Deutsche Bank picks pair for healthcare — Rothesay makes moves in US — Barclays announces new ESG positions
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UK mortgage moratorium numbers are being inflated by the timing of the government’s job retention scheme, with data from lenders suggesting payment holiday levels were more in line with continental Europe than they at first appeared, according to investors.
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Many saw the US Federal Reserve’s decision to lend hundreds of billions of dollars to certain central banks at the height of the coronavirus crisis as pivotal in preventing further calamity in global markets. Brad Setser, senior fellow for international economics at the Council of Foreign Relations, gives a great deal of credit to the Fed for its forceful intervention. But if markets begin to see the US central bank as a global lender of last resort, there may be a greater risk of imprudent behaviour and more political tumult in the US.
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Rothesay Asset Management North America promoted Robert Allard to a newly created role of chief investment officer and added Daniel Parisi as mortgage analyst in a move to ramp up its US structured finance team.
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WhiteHorse Capital, the credit arm of H.I.G. Capital, has hired Jason Hicks as principal. Hicks will be based in WhiteHorse’s New York office and will be responsible for originating and executing middle market debt financings for private equity sponsored transactions.
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UK student loan securitizations are set to repay faster if the government decides to reform inflation indices in 2030, benefiting junior investors. Other noteholders could see returns drop if the government opts for an earlier switch date, however.
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Figure Technologies has hired on Robert Hershy to be head of capital markets for its blockchain platform, Provenance. This marks Hershy’s return to the securitization market after he retired from Morgan Stanley in January 2019.
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Krupa to replace Cabannes at SG — JP Morgan reshuffles activist defence business — Credit Suisse gives Cohen new position
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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has laid out expectations for how repeat non-bank lenders should behave once they resume lending, pushing firms to make operational changes to improve customer welfare.
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The US commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) market has lacked the kind of extensive government support that other asset classes have received, though data shows it is experiencing difficulties. But some are optimistic that the US government will provide aid for the market in its next round of Covid-19 relief measures.
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Cadence, a blockchain based securitization platform for private credit, has added Rohit Bharill to be the firm’s first head of risk, a company executive told GlobalCapital. Bharill joins from Morningstar Credit Ratings, where he headed the ABS and CLO ratings team.
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Citi has hired Florent Chagnard from Credit Suisse to head European CLO syndication in the firm’s London office, according to sources familiar with the situation.
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Amigo Holdings, a UK guarantor loan provider, has won a waiver for its £300m securitization facility with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), giving it until August 14 to come to an agreement on terms while the company fends off an Financial Conduct Authority probe and a public spat between the board and the company's founder.
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Palmer gets interim ECM head gig at BofA — Clarke to join JP Morgan for FIG — Paz-Galindo promoted at UBS
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Colin Parkhill has left Lloyds Bank to join Deutsche Bank as its head of European ABS and CLO syndicate.
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Private specialty finance company Ag Resource Management (ARM) named Rasool Alizadeh as chief financial officer and president of capital markets. Alizadeh joins from FortiFi, a growing Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) lender that issued its first securitization last year.
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The European Commission has included measures to improve the regulatory framework for non-performing loan securitizations in its latest coronavirus response package, while also beginning the classification of synthetic securitizations to qualify for the ‘simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) designation.
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Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets has appointed Eve Marlborough as a director in its bond syndicate team following the resignation of Colin Parkhill.
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The European Commission is looking to change its rules on research unbundling and other aspects of MiFID II to ease the post-coronavirus recovery in the EU. It is also set to present tweaks to rules on securitization and prospectuses.
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Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) provider and ABS issuer Petros PACE has hired Connor Murch as vice president of business development, a newly created role that will help the firm take advantage of the growth of the commercial PACE market seen in recent months.
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The UK government has launched a review to find ways to boost the country’s fintech sector, a week after the Bank of England told alternative and non-bank lenders they would not receive emergency funding to support them during the pandemic.
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Some non-bank lenders are unlikely to survive the pandemic crisis, sources say, after the Bank of England told the industry it is not willing to provide emergency liquidity support in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. Non-bank institutions are having to grant the same payment relief to customers as high street banks but still have outgoing warehousing costs.
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Capital markets have provided record volumes of funding during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from Afme. But a concurrent boom in bank lending shows that European companies still need broader access to equity and debt finance.
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First Eagle Alternative Credit is expanding into asset-based lending, hiring Larry Klaff and Lisa Galeota to lead the new effort.
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Momentum is growing for the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic to have a strong green thrust, as the UK’s mini-Budget and comments by European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde made clear this week. Capital market participants are enthusiastic about the prospect and expect it to further green the markets — but how far the drive goes will ultimately depend on politics, write Mike Turner, Jon Hay and Jasper Cox.
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New sustainable DCM team at Citi — Deutsche picks Stergiou for new position — SMBC Nikko makes ABS trading hire
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Nicholas Sossidis and Stephen Partridge-Hicks, the founders of investment manager Gordian Knot and pioneers of structured investment vehicles, are planning the firm’s comeback in the securitization market, with a new venture focused on corporate receivables ready to launch.
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Royal Bank of Scotland's structured finance head Andrew Blincoe has become head of large corporates and institutions at RBS Commercial Banking, as well as keeping his existing responsibilities as structured finance head, following the departure of Laura Barlow.
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Thompson & Knight has hired three litigation attorneys, Keith Brandofino, Maximiliano Rinaldi and David Mignardi, to bolster the commercial real estate and loan servicing business in the firm’s New York office. All three attorneys join from Kilpatrick Townsend.
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Zam Khan is a managing director in Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Institutions Group, where he leads the portfolio and capital advisory practice. He told GlobalCapital how banks should use financial data to deal with new NPL formations, or risk being engulfed by losses over the next few months.
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Oliver Wriedt has stepped down from his role as CEO of DFG Investment Advisers to start his own investment firm, according to CLO market sources.
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SMBC Nikko Capital Markets has hired Manish Peshawaria as head of ABS trading, with a mandate to build out the secondary business, as part of its expansion into the European securitization market.
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If UK pension savers knew how their money was invested, funds would be more inclined to invest exclusively in environmental, social and governance (ESG) assets. So argues Richard Curtis, the screenwriter, director and co-founder of Comic Relief. He has launched a public campaign, Make My Money Matter, to pressure UK pension funds to invest more sustainably.
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Environmental, social and governance investors have been patting themselves on the back this year because their funds have tended to outperform during the coronavirus crisis. But a San Francisco hedge fund believes they are doing a poor job of shielding investors from the general risk of the stockmarket and more quantitative methods would improve the outcome.
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It can hardly be said that the process of releasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government conservatorship has been rushed. The painstaking process has taken place over the course more than a decade and has consumed the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) through two presidential administrations. And yet, FHFA capital requirements proposals published this week for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) may not go far enough to ensure their safety and soundness.
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The end of government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac drew one step closer this week, but a US Supreme Court ruling on the leadership structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) raises the possibility that the course could be reversed under a new government after November's election, write Max Adams and Jennifer Kang.
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Aegon Asset Management named Russell Morrison as the new global chief investment officer for its $188bn fixed income investment platform as part of its effort to form a global, unified management board.
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Investcorp Credit Management announced on Tuesday that it has hired Brian Marshall to its US credit business.
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The UK government allowed the growth of the non-bank sector after the global financial crisis, but during the coronavirus pandemic, it has left it to fend for itself.
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Ares Management Corporation has agreed to extend a covenant waiver on its securitization financing for Non-Standard Finance (NSF) after initially giving the lender until June 29 to find alternative funding.
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Residential mortgage REIT Two Harbors Investment Corp. has announced that Thomas Siering is stepping down as the president and CEO after over a decade with the firm, replaced by William Greenberg, former vice president and co-CIO.
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A group of lawmakers led by Texas Republican Van Taylor has sent a letter this week to secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, urging them to address the ‘looming crisis’ in the commercial real estate market, particularly for struggling borrowers saddled with CMBS debt.
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The Basel Committee has proposed tweaks to its securitization rules to ease non-performing loan sales — but it hasn’t gone as far as market participants would like, and has rowed back from proposals tabled by the European Banking Authority last October, which would have cut capital requirements much further.
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Deutsche gives Toomey position as head of new group — Gimpel leaves Citi, has fintech idea — Moelis hires Whelchel for private capital team
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Securitization is the most mathematical of debt markets, and synthetic securitization its most abstract department. But in a niche within that niche is a small investment firm, for which the market is all about ideas and people. Jon Hay reports.
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Deutsche Bank has hired Mark DeSplinter as managing director and head of US index and single-name credit default swaps (CDS), based in New York.
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Alternative investment manager Pretium Partners has hired Charlie Himmelberg as senior managing director and head of macro research.
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Campaigners for equality for lesbian, gay and transgender people in the US hailed a historic victory on Monday, when the Supreme Court for the first time made it illegal throughout the country for employers to discriminate against staff on grounds of sexual or gender orientation.
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European securitization could see an influx of investors re-enter the market in light of experts' recommendations of better regulatory treatment in a Capital Markets Union (CMU) report.
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Government-guaranteed loan schemes for SMEs have been rolled out across many developed economies, and now the most pressing part of the coronavirus crisis appears to be passing, policy makers are turning to the tricky question of who wears the losses. Securitization schemes could be deployed in the UK and elsewhere in Europe — but that can only tranche the risk, not make it disappear.
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Jefferies has taken two more bankers from Citi’s EMEA CLO operation to join former syndicate head Laura Coady in setting up a primary CLO team and overhauling its European securitized products business.
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The coronavirus pandemic has catapulted capital markets forward in time. Things thought impossible have come about — above all, a sustained flow of credit through a harsh economic downturn. But are the markets heading for utopia or dystopia?
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Fair Oaks Capital has hired structured finance professional Christos Danias to run marketing in its European CLO group.
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A group of market participants and experts selected by the European Commission produced a series of proposals for the Capital Markets Union in a report published on Wednesday, as the coronavirus crisis gave new impetus to the project.
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Reforms to personal bankruptcy regimes in various countries along the lines of the US Chapter 13 code could improve non-performing loan (NPL) markets by boosting transparency and certainty, according to Charles Rusbasan, chief executive of Balbec Capital, which has just raised a new $1.2bn fund to buy NPLs where borrowers are subject to insolvency proceedings, restructuring or other forms of distress.
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Struggling UK small and medium-sized enterprises could see their debts sold to insurance companies or other institutional investors in a scheme similar to that used to securitize student loans in the country, according to proposals floated by finance lobby group TheCityUK in a report published on Monday.
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Participants in the sustainable bond market are considering allowing issuers to publish their sustainability frameworks after issuing bonds, instead of before. This would be a major change in market practice.
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Shearman & Sterling has hired Mark Chorazak as partner in its global financial institutions advisory and financial regulatory practice in New York.
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There were more calls this week for the UK government to support non-bank lenders that are unable to access the Term Funding Scheme, with market participants preferring a simple extension rather than alternative funding options.
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Owl Rock Capital, an alternative asset manager focused on middle market credit, has hired Jesse Huff from Oaktree Capital Management.
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Cairn Capital has hired Bank of Montreal's Charis Edwards as junior portfolio manager for risk transfer.
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The capital markets have been working to transition operations to a digital format for years, but bank incumbents have been reluctant to make a wholesale shift, largely because there was no urgent need to do so. Coronavirus has changed that, and banks are accelerating plans to update legacy systems, muscling in on territory once held firmly by fintechs.
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The UK chancellor has doubled the mortgage moratorium period to six months, but has not allowed mortgage lenders more discretion when deciding to grant payment holidays on their mortgages. This is making RMBS performance difficult to assess, market participants say.
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Credit hedge funds are looking to finance books of SME loans originated under the UK government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), subscribing for the equity in private securitization vehicles backed by the loans. The government guarantees are likely to improve the financing terms on offer, boosting returns for funds that can access these assets — but there are still questions over the details of the scheme.
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The Bank of England is mulling ways to support businesses left out of Covid-19 support schemes, with a focus on sub-investment grade corporates and encouraging lending into the real economy. A securitization structure is being comtemplated via the setting up of an intermediary bank.
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The Federal Reserve’s Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility succeeded in boosting investor confidence and providing a backstop to further spread widening, but sources say that key limitations in the scope of the programme, even with the most recent expansion last week, mean that the benefits have mostly already been felt.
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The Federal Reserve this week revised its Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to include a broader pool of leveraged loans eligible as collateral, a move that will clear the backup in warehouses but likely will not do much to reinvigorate the market.
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New ABS contracts are being written to exclude pandemics from the scope of ‘force majeure’ clauses, inserted to allow servicers to step away from their commitments if events outside of their control – such as the outbreak of Covid-19 – stop them from servicing portfolios.
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One of Europe’s leading bond syndicate bankers has decided to leave Citigroup, and probably the capital markets.
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Nassau Private Credit, the CLO arm of Nassau Financial Group, announced that it has hired Vincent Chan as portfolio manager to focus on CLO investments.
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As a crucial middleman in the oil business, Trafigura has had to cope with concerns about the creditworthiness of some of its counterparts, and unprecedented volatility in the oil price that saw the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) contract turn negative at the end of April. Christophe Salmon, the company’s chief financial officer, explained how the company has coped with the crisis, and how its funding approach, based on deep banking relationships and a secured financing structure, proved resilient to the chaos around it.
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The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced new details for its Term Asset Backed Lending Facility (TALF) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and is planning monthly updates for the duration of each program to identify borrowers, amounts borrowed and interest charged for loans backed by eligible ABS assets.
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The coronavirus crisis has severely disrupted the move away from Libor to the new recommended risk-free rates. But market participants will have to press on to meet the original deadline, with no extension on the horizon, according to a senior capital markets lawyer.
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The fallout from the Covid-19 crisis has touched nearly every economic and employment sector, from the largest corporations to the smallest businesses. The pain has prompted an unprecedented policy response aimed at rescuing economies and markets, and further measures are likely to come. US commercial real estate has been especially impacted, with commercial mortgage lending slowing dramatically, already struggling retailers going dark across the country and a likely rethinking of the use of space following a nationwide experiment in working from home.
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Bernardo Martinez, managing director of Funding Circle US, is moving back to PayPal to serve as the vice president of global business financing solutions.
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MUFG announced on Friday that is has hired Marc Lavine and Diane Wright as directors in the Japanese bank's leveraged finance sales group in New York.
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The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its proposals for developing a 'simple, transparent and standardised' (STS) framework for synthetic securitization, endorsing better capital treatment and permitting the use of some excess spread for credit enhancement — a boost for the market if the package is approved by the European Commission.
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Europe’s SMEs are in trouble. The coronavirus pandemic has zeroed revenues and threatens their very existence. They last faced a big threat in the 2008 crisis when bank lending dried up and a recession took hold. Back then, securitization took a lot of the blame as the cause, but this time it offers a route to rescue.
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As Western societies begin to contemplate life returning to some semblance of normality, the financial industry is working out how best to balance the understandable desire to get back to how things were before the crisis with the very real threat of a new and more deadly wave of coronavirus brought on by a mass-return to offices. GlobalCapital’s Silas Brown spoke with Peter Openshaw, a specialist in immunology and virology and professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College, about the transmission of Covid-19 and how banks, investors and companies can reduce the risk of infection.
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US Bank has hired Sean Kelley as head of CLO data analytics and research, based in Chicago.
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Kate Fulton is joining the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as chief operating officer as part of the agency's broader restructuring plan announced in January, which aims to prepare the government sponsored enterprises to exit conservatorship.
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The Federal Reserve reassured jittery markets on Wednesday that it is committed to using the full range of policy responses available to it in order to blunt the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, though some in the market fear that the central bank’s aggressive response will do longer term damage to market efficiency once the pandemic subsides.
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The head of policy for the Structured Finance Association has joined commercial real estate and CMBS lobbying organization CREFC as managing director, regulatory policy.
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Angelo Gordon has hired Putri Pascualy to its investor relations team in New York as a managing director and credit product specialist.
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British retail lobbying groups are clamouring for government support as tenants struggle to cover rent in the month since the lockdown began. But market players say help for the sector is unlikely, and CMBS is preparing for widespread delinquencies as the shutdown extends.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) set a four month limit on Tuesday to the period over which mortgage servicers are obligated to advance payments on loans in forbearance, a long awaited liquidity fix the industry was pushing for.
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Sidley Austin has hired Joshua Thompson, the former head of global leveraged finance at Shearman Sterling, as a partner in its global finance team in New York.
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Deutsche Bank has set up an inter-disciplinary sustainable finance team in its capital markets group, aiming to be “viewed as [a] market leader on this important subject”, as it senses that clients, including big oil and gas companies, are having increasingly to consider environmental and social issues to access the capital markets.
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Any attempt to create a eurozone bad bank is likely to face many challenges, both political ones over support for the banking sector and practical ones in creating an institution dealing with non-performing loans from across Europe, market experts have said.
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The UK government has been consulting on ways to use CLO and other securitization structures to direct funding to large companies that fell between the cracks of its existing emergency supports for SMEs and the Bank of England’s investment grade commercial paper scheme.
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European capital markets have continued to function well during the coronavirus crisis, according to a report released on Monday by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (Afme). However, in terms of primary market activity, the industry body’s data shows quite how sharply issuance has skewed towards investment grade, with riskier debt and IPO markets closed off.
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The CLO market is still struggling to find equilibrium as the coronavirus pandemic spreads. The Federal Reserve’s expansion of its Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF) to include CLO paper as eligible collateral was cheered upon announcement last week. But some puzzling limitations to the Fed’s terms will do little to help the market reboot.
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Harsh Shah, head of financial institutions origination and solutions, is leaving NatWest Markets as part of the UK bank's restructuring process announced in February by new group CEO Alison Rose.
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Lazard hires restructuring lawyer — Former GSO MD joins Kennedy Lewis — RBC picks high yield and loan sales head
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US insurer Global Atlantic Financial Group has hired Donald Bobbs as head of credit.
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Former GSO Capital Partners managing director Richard “Dik” Blewitt has joined Kennedy Lewis Investment Management as partner and head of tactical opportunities.
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CLO portfolio manager and leveraged credit veteran Gil Tollinchi will depart investment management firm Pretium Partners at the end of April.
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ABS eligible for the simple, transparent and standardised’ (STS) criteria could have lost its preferential capital benefits after payment freezes on consumer lending went into place across Europe, but the EBA has acted to clear up the uncertainty and confirm the capital benefits.
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A new insurance-linked security (ILS) gives investors exposure to Credit Suisse’s operational risk: the third trade of its type covering the Swiss bank and the biggest one yet. Credit Suisse can receive relief on regulatory capital from insurance policies related to non-financial risk.
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The Federal Reserve unveiled two new liquidity facilities on Thursday to support small and medium sized businesses against the backdrop of an unemployment report that showed another 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.
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The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced that the Term Asset Backed Lending Facility (TALF) will be expanded to include triple-A rated CMBS and CLO paper as eligible collateral, part of another sweeping set of relief measures to support the economy as damage from the virus pandemic mounts.
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Royal Bank of Scotland is pushing ahead with job cuts in its investment banking division, bucking a trend by big banks to delay restructuring plans and cost-cutting during the coronavirus crisis.
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US lawmakers are moving towards securing an additional $250bn for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) as it becomes clear that businesses will burn through the amount originally set aside for the rescue. But more funding is just one of the many fixes the programme needs, sources say.
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GlobalCapital speaks with Funding Circle head of US regulatory affairs and social impact, Ryan Metcalf, about the pitfalls of the US government’s Paycheck Protection Program, the hurdles for fintech companies, and other measures the Trump administration can take to protect small businesses.
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Banks sponsoring asset-backed commercial paper conduits activated the liquidity lines backing up these vehicles in the days before Federal Reserve intervention started to stabilise commercial paper markets, as rates spiked and investors focused on only the shortest maturities.
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UBS has promoted Barry Donlon to run its debt capital markets business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, alongside several other job changes.
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Companies in sectors that lack government support packages are having to weigh moving quickly to secure costly private-sector rescue capital against waiting and hoping governments extend existing bailout or liquidity schemes to them. The cost of Carnival Corp’s $6.25bn package last week showed how expensive private sector cash can be, but many sectors’ prospects of receiving public money are better than the Panama-domiciled cruise company.
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Lenders are scrambling to process an overwhelming number of applications without clear guidelines for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a government-backed lending program that kicked off last Friday. From certifying lenders to accepting applications, sources have described the process as "a disaster", with many small businesses running out of time and cash.
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The European Banking Authority has made it clear when loans subject to Covid-19 moratoria should be classified as forborne exposures or distressed restructurings, following calls from the industry for further guidance in this area.
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Together Money has hired former LibreMax European ABS head Steven Harrison to oversee its loans, mortgage and finance arms.
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James 'Jim' Amine has left Credit Suisse, which has folded his private credit opportunities business into a different unit.
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The Federal Reserve continued its roll-out of initiatives to support the economy through the Covid-19 crisis this week, including the revival of the term asset-backed loan facility (TALF). However, market participants say the program is incomplete as long as it omits certain asset classes, specifically private label CMBS, and worry that some sectors will buckle without the support of the central bank.
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Intrum’s share price dropped sharply this week after short seller Muddy Waters disclosed it was betting against the firm’s stock price. The debt purchasing sector has been a popular target for short sellers for years, but the impact of coronavirus and associated measures is a further heavy blow.
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Alternative credit specialist CIFC has hired David Walker as head of research.
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The Federal Reserve said this week that it would revive its Primary Dealer Credit Facility, expanding the program to include triple-A rated CLOs, as the central bank dives deeper into the crisis era playbook to stem the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.
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Stress in the commercial paper market was the main point of discussion in a member-wide conference call on Monday held by the Structured Finance Association, as members tried to get a read on market dynamics that are changing on a daily basis.
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The Federal Reserve cut rates for a second time this month on Sunday by 100bp, bringing the target range to near zero. Despite the central bank taking swift action to halt the market decline caused by Covid-19, sources are expecting a painful recession if fiscal policies are not implemented to blunt the impact to the most vulnerable parts of the economy.
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Since the invention of green bonds 13 years ago, market participants have circled round the problem of what is green. There are many answers, such as the Climate Bonds Initiative's standards, but none have any official authority. That is about to change. The EU's Green Bond Standard is likely to become law before the year is out, and it could alter the market in several ways.
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The outlook for Italy continues to worsen, as both the coronavirus pandemic and financial markets rout deepened on Thursday. But essential services are functioning, in society and markets, and Italians are helping each other through the crisis, including with funding difficulties. By Jon Hay and Lewis McLellan
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The Bank of England’s unscheduled decision to cut rates and encourage banks to lend to the real economy on Wednesday morning was viewed as a powerful step by some in the market, although it is very unlikely to put to bed economic uncertainty over the impact of coronavirus.
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Members of the European Parliament have still not found the right balance between cleaning banks’ balance sheets and ensuring appropriate control of debt servicers and protection of retail borrowers, causing a delay to plans to reform non-performing loan sales.
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High yield companies facing a debt market crunch could turn to private trade receivables securitization to deliver a lower cost source of funds, with this market likely to see a boost in activity during the second half of the year.
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Last year was the first since the crisis that European markets ducked under NPL ratios of 3%. It would have been a cause for celebration, if not for the coronavirus outbreak marauding the continent, ready to bring a new generation of non-performing assets to bank balance sheets.
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Italy has announced a freeze on mortgage payments following the implementation of a nationwide lockdown to deal with the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, with RBS offering similar mortgage relief to those affected by the outbreak in the UK.
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The European Central Bank is widely expected to ramp up its efforts to prop up the eurozone economy on Thursday. It could spear the effects of an oil price shock and the spread of the coronavirus outbreak with a trident of bank lending, rate cuts and QE.
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The European Commission's Technical Expert Group will be publishing its much-awaited Taxonomy and Green Bond Standard on Monday. GlobalCapital has received leaked copies from a source in Brussels. The GBS endorses a use of proceeds approach and limits the inclusion of operating expenditure. The Taxonomy contains reassurance for companies whose activities are not yet covered by it and sets out human rights standards.
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UniCredit has appointed a new global head of debt syndicate, as the present one is leaving the bank.
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BNP Paribas has hired Ankush Chowdhury as the head of transportation finance in the Americas, a newly created position focused on driving the bank's strategy for aircraft, shipping and other transportation asset classes.
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Recently marketed CLO documents circulated to investors have included language to suggest that the European Union could require Ireland to bring its VAT tax laws in line with the rest of the EU, raising fears that CLOs domiciled in the country could suffer a similar fate to Netherlands-based transactions.
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Aberdeen Standard's Milligan to quit — Daiwa's Hultgren leaves over Frankfurt relocation — MUFG picks Domann
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Pollen Street Capital and the board of an investment trust it advises are locked in a fight over the potential sale of the investment trust to Waterfall Asset Management, with the board describing Pollen Street’s data room as “of no meaningful use whatsoever and a complete waste of time”.
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Christian Moor, principal policy officer at the European Banking Authority, has switched roles after steering the regulatory body’s approach to securitization and covered bonds for nearly a decade.
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Spanish banks dodged potentially billions in compensation costs after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) kicked a mortgage dispute on to local Spanish courts, allowing borrowers to switch to a more affordable rate. While the ruling is a win for banks, it is a potential credit negative for some legacy RMBS.
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Apollo Global Management has hired Obinna Eke, the former head of US CLO syndicate at BNP Paribas.
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HSBC has made Mehmet Mazi global head of debt trading and financing, a newly created position. It comes after the departure of Elie El Hayek, a veteran of the bank who had run fixed income.
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The final templates for the EU Securitization Regulation have once again been held back from the finish line, now set to be released together alongside other technical standards, despite the templates officially passing the three-month scrutiny period.
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ICG, the asset manager, has hired Rob Faulkner as managing director responsible for European CLOs.
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The Bank of England turned up the heat on Libor this week with plans to publish a compounded Sonia index and averages in a move that will drive the transition to the new risk-free rate with a simpler coupon calculation methodology. It will also increase haircuts on Libor-linked collateral which is intended to accelerate the switch out of Libor FRNs maturing after 2021.
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Eurobank has submitted applications for the senior tranches of a securitization backed by a €7.5bn loan portfolio to qualify for the Hellenic Asset Protection Scheme, known as ‘Hercules’, making it among the first to qualify for the programme if it is approved.
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The CLO industry is expected to make an exodus from the Netherlands as managers with deals in the pipeline look to domicile their warehouses in Ireland. This follows a court ruling in the country, where up to a fifth of the market is located, which stings managers for a tax on management fees in a move that could shrink their income and reduce deal volumes. Tom Brown reports
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Metro Bank is looking to become a more profitable institution after launching a review of its strategy this week, but the lender still faces the challenge of having to raise a further £500m of debt to meet its capital needs.
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The Bank of England has said it intends to publish compounded Sonia averages and a Sonia index using a ‘shift’ calculation method by the end of July, subject to feedback on a series of questions it has asked sterling market participants. This follows the first deal using that method from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Bank last week.
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Assicurazioni Generali, the Italian insurance company, has launched a framework to show how insurance-linked securities can be structured to contribute towards investments in green assets.
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Remarks delivered by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of the office of credit ratings at SFVegas on Monday hinted at the possibility that the regulator could re-evaluate the effectiveness of Rule 17g-5, a post-crisis rule intended to address conflicts in the issuer pay model.
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Some in the market still do not see eye to eye on Libor transition even with the cessation of the benchmark at the end of 2021 fast approaching.
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Bernie Sanders claimed victory in the Nevada Democratic primary election to emerge as the clear party frontrunner last weekend. Financial policy experts speaking on Monday at the SFVegas conference in Las Vegas addressed a crowd nervous over the prospect of a progressive left US president unsympathetic to Wall Street.
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An amendment to the UK Securitization law is set to come into effect at the end of 2020 when the Brexit transition period ends, clearing up confusion around the definition of sponsor in a move that could see the UK and the EU regimes diverge, said Mayor Brown in a notice released Thursday.
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Europe’s capital markets are back in super-demand mode.
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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development this week became the first borrower to deviate from the standardised coupon calculation method for Sonia-linked floating rates. While investors backed the new structure, with the deal receiving a huge order book from a large number of accounts, there are some market participants who believe the disruption was unnecessary, writes Burhan Khadbai.