CDOs/CLOs

DBRS has created the position of chief credit officer, Canadian structured finance and appointed Jerry Marriott to this role as of Dec. 1.

Analysts anticipate little fallout from Standard & Poor's downgrade of Assured Guaranty.

As the European sovereign crisis and uncertainty in the U.S. housing market play havoc with the prices of securitizable assets, appraising risk seems as easy for investors as threading a needle while riding a rollercoaster.

Credit ratings have historically played a relatively small role in the European leveraged loan market, which through the 1990s was comprised of privately held companies borrowing almost exclusively from banks.

Standard & Poor's changed some of its ratings for National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. (NPFG), the municipal bond insuring subsidiary of MBIA.

Radian Guaranty is seeking waivers in 12 states of risk-to-capital requirements, even though it does have $600 million in capital at the parent company level available to downstream to the mortgage insurer, chief financial officer Bob Quint said during a presentation at the FBR Capital Markets Fall Investor Conference.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a proposal Tuesday that would remove references to credit ratings from its regulations, and posted guidance to help banks evaluate investment risks.The Dodd-Frank Act requires federal agencies to review regulations that required banks to use credit ratings to asses the creditworthiness of a security or money market instrument. Under the law, regulators must modify the rules to remove the references to credit ratings, and substitute them with an alternative standard.

Lloyds Banking Group has closed its Australian leveraged finance group, a spokesman confirmed.

The proposed changes to the Standard & Poor's counterparty criteria make them generally more lenient, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) analysts said in a report released today.

Moody’s Investors Service launched a private loan ratings service for issuers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) markets, the rating agency said today.