CMBS

Principia Partners recently surveyed over 500 investors, issuers, regulators and other structured finance professionals on the subject of investor due diligence.

The commercial real estate (CRE) markets are in for a long, slow recovery in the face of persistently high unemployment, ongoing concern over government policy, uneven availability of capital for refinancing, and other factors dampening market activity, according to The Real Estate Roundtable's fourth quarter survey of over 110 senior CRE executives.

Landon Parsons joined Moelis & Co. as senior advisor in the firm’s risk advisory group.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposal of Oct. 13 to require issuers to review the underlying assets in their ABS should create a much more uniform set of review standards - to the benefit of investors. However, it could significantly alter, perhaps to the ABS market's detriment, how the reviews are performed.

The so-called foreclosure scandal has grabbed headlines over the past month. ASR's November issue looks beyond the mainstream coverage to its effect on bondholders.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) recently finalized its Safe Harbor that protects the assets that are transferred to bank-sponsored securitization vehicles from a financial institution's FDIC receivership.

Standard & Poor’s predicts that the volume of outstanding structured finance securities in the U.S. as a percentage of GDP will fall to the 23%-25% range by the end of 2011, the weighting it had in 2003-2004.

More details on the structural terms of the upcoming sizable CMBS deal from Extended Stay were revealed this week.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair became the first regulator to publicly shoulder some of the blame for foreclosure problems at several servicers, saying the agencies should have seen it coming.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit offered up a scathing review Monday of Basel III, saying the new rules do nothing to reduce pro-cyclicality or to level the playing field among different countries and differently regulated financial institutions.