KKR Financial Holdings has closed its $412 million CLO called KKR Financial CLO 2012-1, its first forray into the broadly syndicated securitization market since 2007.

In the second to last week of the year, the pace of CLO issuance is still going strong, with several deals making the rounds.

CIFC Corp. announced on Thursday that John Wu, former head of CLO structuring at UBS, joined the firm as managing director and portfolio manager focusing on structured investments.

LIG Assets and Texas Real Estate Hedge Fund, LP foresee significant opportunities the repositioning of the commercial mortgage-backed securities and the upcoming commercial real estate maturities

Overall losses for reinsurers aren’t having a negative impact on Catastrophe bonds, in fact the market is moving along quite nicely, according to Swiss Re.

Quantitative easing, particularly the Federal Reserve’s ongoing effort to buy mortgage-backed securities, has frustrated smaller banks that are also in the market for such assets.

Income based repayment plans for student loans would help improve cashflows in student loan securitization, industry sources say.

Trinity Rail is planning a $333.84 million securitization of railcar leases, the company’s first deal of 2012.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP announced today that Cheryl Barnes, David Burkholder and Holly Chamberlain have been named partners.

Consumer Portfolio Services closed on its fourth subprime auto loan securitization of the year; CPS Auto Receivables Trust 2012-D issued a total of $166 million of notes in five classes.

Hercules Technology Growth Capital said today it completed a $231 million collateralized loan obligation, the company’s first CLO.