CDOs/CLOs

Standard Chartered Bank has completed Start V CLO, its fifth CLO transaction under its Start CLO series.

Year to date as of 08/16 Term (days) 08/10 08/11 08/12 08/13 08/16 1-week

The Securities and Exchange Commission delivered a blistering report Tuesday that detailed the shortcomings of Fitch Ratings, Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's when it came to rating RMBS and CDOs.

CLOs continued to squeak out new issuance in the second quarter, making them the only corner of the U.S. CDO market to do so. The good news is that, of the new CLO deals to hit the market, several were structured from fresh loan assets - rather than from balance sheet assets, which have thus far represented most 2008 CLO issuance.

Nine European and global trade associations today released Ten Industry Initiatives to Increase Transparency in the European Securitization Markets in response to the European Council of Finance Ministers’ (ECOFIN) call in its October 2007 roadmap to “enhance transparency for investor, markets and regulators” by mid-2008.

A Goldman Sachs analyst estimates that Citigroup will face an $8.9 billion write-down in its second quarter earnings.

Lehman Brothers said Tuesday it has brought back two senior managers, and promoted two other staffers. Michael Gelband will return to serve as global head of capital markets, and Alex Kirk has rejoined as global head of principal investing. They will report to Bart McDade, the newly named president and chief operating officer at Lehman.

An internal memo made the rounds announcing that the European Securitization Forum (ESF) has developed its own centralized Web portal to link a variety of sources containing information on European RMBS transactions and CDO managers, Royal Bank of Scotland analysts reported.

Many financial institutions, including M&T Bank Corp., got burned by the CDO market's collapse resulting from the crumbling of subprime mortgages.

Morgan Joseph & Co., the New York investment bank, has launched a structured products group, naming Darren Wolberg and Dale Hoffman to serve as co-heads and managing directors of the new analytics and trading unit.