Finance

Ambac Assurance Corp.’s rehabilitation plan won’t take effect in May as planned, meaning that frozen claims on roughly $50 billion of risky assets will remain unpaid until further notice.

Residential delinquencies have stabilized and charge-offs have eased, and the second dip in home prices has not been remotely as severe as its older twin. Nonetheless, enormous pools of home equity loans that in fact have little or no home equity standing behind them continue to sow doubts about the health of the nation's largest banking companies.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) appointed Marcia Davies as Chief of Staff, effective immediately.

Clayton Holdings partnered with MBSData, which provides accurate and timely deal and loan-level information on public non-agency MBS, to offer new loan-level data risk identification analytics as well as enhanced reporting solutions to fixed-income mortgage sector investors.

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last month gave the catastrophe bond market its biggest test since Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, and the early indicators suggest that it passed.

One of the gross oversimplifications of the mortgage boom and bust is that banks were more inclined to make risky loans because they were able to get them off their books through securitization. In fact, one of the most troublesome categories of bubble-era lending has been sitting on banks' balance sheets all along.

For years esoteric ABS kept its little brother status in a securitization market that was largely dominated by more conventional asset classes.

CoreLogic and Asset Securitization Report sponsored a Web seminar called Today's Best Practices in RMBS Due Diligence. The event was moderated by Michael Stanton, executive vice president for SourceMedia's capital markets division.

As part of a joint initiative, the FHFA and HUD recently released a presentation outlining potential revisions to the current system of servicer compensation. The initiative's stated goals are 1) improving customer service for borrowers, 2) reducing financial risks for servicers, and 3) helping servicers better manage their pipeline of nonperforming loans (NPLs). In light of the asset's unusual economics, an examination of servicing compensation is long overdue. However, the initiative's proposed changes to the compensation structure for NPL servicing runs counter to the notion of reducing the mortgage market's dependence on the government.

ABS investors' search for yield has taken them to an interesting place, where products that were once marginal are now the main attraction. In vogue are decidedly esoteric deals, ranging from whole business securitizations to structured settlement transactions.

The government's proposals for mortgage risk retention, aimed at getting sponsors of securitizations to retain some skin in the game, could potentially change the commercial real estate (CRE) financing landscape, while creating opportunity for some.

Prepayment responsiveness has been significantly reduced because of the housing/financial crisis that has resulted in very tight credit conditions and significant home value declines. Analysts expect this phenomenon to remain for some years, especially as home values continue to weaken and underwriting standards tighten.

European securitization market players will apparently put more "skin-in-the-game" than their U.S. counterparts if U.S. regulatory requirements for risk retention move ahead as written.

As with their counterparts in other areas of structured finance, emerging market players have been mulling over the question of where exactly their deals fit in the new regulatory landscapes of Western Europe and the U.S.

The financial crisis reached its apex in fall 2008 when major Wall Street firms collapsed. But for the big three rating agencies - Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings - the crisis began at least a year before, when they started issuing massive downgrades of RMBS.

Manager Activity: Autos Book Runner Amount (US$ Mil) Rank Mkt.

Standard & Poor's, along with Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, downgraded billions of dollars structured transactions in the summer of 2007, resulting in a wave of criticism. So when Deven Sharma was named S&P president on Sept. 1 of that year, he kicked off a reform program that continues today.

Under the brand esoteric comes an array of asset classes. Right now the industry is seeing whole business deals such as the issuance of a $220 million transaction for Church's Chicken earlier this year.

The Treasury Market Pratice Group (TMPG) published it's proposed fails charge for agency MBS and debt set to take effect early next year. The trade group is taking comments on the proposal until June 10.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have agreed to "single track" delinquent borrowers for at least 120 days before servicers begin foreclosure processing under new loss mitigation guidelines sanctioned by the GSE regulator.