CDOs/CLOs

The Basel committee last Wednesday announced plans to enhance Basel II, a move that involves some extra steps to "strengthen the resilience of the banking system."

It was not exactly a stunning comeback for the securitization industry, but last week's collection of deals marked something of a stepped up pace of issuance and there was talk of revived investor confidence in the industry.

ABN Amro ABS syndicate head Neil McPherson left the bank on April 10, according to people familiar with the bank. Market sources said that several people left along with McPherson, and suggested that the change was probably a result of downsizing after the company takeover by Royal Bank of Scotland. Company officials could not be reached by press time. McPherson joined ABN from Credit Suisse, where he was a managing director and syndicate head.

London-based credit asset manager Cairn Financial Products is now the successor collateral manager for White Marlin CDO 2007-1, a $1.2 billion investment grade corporate CDO.

Alistair Darling, the U.K. chancellor of the exchequer, said that the G7 leading economies need to take action to ease the ongoing strains on the global financial markets and to strengthen the financial system's resilience.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Sigma Finance's Gordian Knot-managed SIV senior ratings to A2'/P2' from Aaa'/'P1' following a review of credit enhancement and impending liquidity problems.

With the current volatile environment, surveillance has become a key feature in the work of collateral managers and investors alike. In this vein, Deloitte & Touche - which has previously come out with the ABCP, ABS and CDO Suite products as part of its Securitization Office family of solutions - has released Surveillance Suite, which is a customized tool to help users track their portfolios.

As things fall apart at MBS and CDO operations throughout the securitization industry - creating a void in financial services - small teams of executives have begun to regroup as hedge and distressed-asset funds to start picking up the pieces.

For more than nine months, the market has been attempting to sort through the tangled web of counterparty risk that has entrapped Wall Street.

When the subprime RMBS and HEL markets began to fall apart, the market watched as billions in mezzanine CDO liquidations routed spreads, undermined investor confidence and siphoned liquidity from the securitization markets.