Babson Capital Management has launched a middle market lending group, the Springfield, Mass.-based investment management firm said.

The securitization market kicks off this week the way it usually does nowadays — with an auto ABS transaction.

Barclays Capital analysts believe that the temporary and minor increase in prepayments from the Special Direct Consolidation program will have a limited effect on FFELP ABS bond valuations, according to the firm’s latest Consumer ABS Weekly.

Bank of America (BofA) is ready to hit the market with a $100 million package of residential servicing rights backed mostly by nonperforming loans guaranteed by Freddie Mac, according to industry advisors familiar with the deal.

In expanding its note sale pilot program, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is imposing new certification requirements on servicers that are willing to assign defaulted Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans for the upcoming sales.

Gleacher & Co. Securities, a broker-dealer subsidiary of Gleacher & Co., hired seven professionals to the MBS and rates division in its New York City office. Glen Riis and Samir Shah have been hired as managing directors while Eric Baeri, Samuel Hernson, David Kaplan, Anthony Mun, and Jeffrey David Weaver have joined as directors.

Several years back Ocwen Financial was both a subprime lender and held a thrift charter—two businesses that have long since gone down the road of extinction.

Kenneth Margala has been hired as director at Cantor Commercial Real Estate (CCRE) where he will focus on loan origination.

Auto ABS net loss rates were 0.89% as of May 2012, increasing four basis points from April, Standard & Poor's said in a report released Friday. The previous month had the lowest rate since the rating agency started tracking them in 2006.

Chicago is the latest city to pass a resolution to hold hearings on whether to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages from private investors.

More records were set as the week commenced along lower coupon MBS and 10-year Treasury note yields as a result of global growth and eurozone worries.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a fast growing buyer of mortgages from correspondents — including Jumbos — recently inked a deal to receive a $100 million repo line from Barclays Bank .