Finance

After nine months of struggle, the Senate finally succeeded Thursday in passing 61 to 38 a bill to create a $30 billion small business lending fund for community banks.

Sand Capital has acquired more than $100 million in distressed debt and REO properties, said Jay Stein, the firm's president. Sand Capital is a division of Sandor Development Co.

The ABS market has seen a deluge of transactions from the various asset classes, although the auto sector still has the lion's share of the pipeline.

The September remittance report for the MSC 2007-HQ12 deal showed that a "noteworthy" loan modification was done on one of the larger delinquent loans in the CMBS universe, according to Bank of America Merill Lynch analysts.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rates rose for the second week in a row to an average of 4.37% with an average 0.7 point from 4.35% last week.

Flagstar Bancorp — which continues to rank among the top 10 mortgage wholesalers in the U.S. — declined to confirm or deny that it is considering a $600 million offering of new equity.

Thanks to a pick-up in cash flows, an $100 million 2006-A tranche backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs) from Kazakhstan's Alliance Bank fully paid down this week, said a source at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which wrapped the piece.

Mortgage servicers and banks foreclosed on more homes in August — 95,364 units — than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis, according to new figures compiled by RealtyTrac, Irvine, Calif.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair said Wednesday that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's new capital plan should have been tougher.

How to ensure the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has the flexibility it seeks while giving investors and issuers the certainty they need emerged Wednesday as the central sticking point confronting lawmakers interested in developing a covered bond market in the U.S.

Moody's Investors Service has assigned provisional ratings for the Class I-A-1 and Class II-A-1 Tax Lien Asset-Backed Passthrough Certificates, Series 2010-1, which is issued by Tax Liens Securitization Trust 2010-1.

Freddie Mac has again extended deadlines for borrowers who sought alternative loan modifications after dropping out from the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).

WestLB selected Quantifi’s Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA) pricing tool, Quantifi CVA, for accurately pricing and hedging the counterparty risk of new trades and existing portfolios.

The nation's GSE regulator Wednesday voiced his concern about the slow pace of seller/servicers repurchasing problem loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, singling out the nation's megabanks for their poor performance in this area.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) said its likely that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) will extend the interim Safe Harbor.

The Treasury's point man on GSE reform said Wednesday that the Obama White House will not propose any changes to government guarantees backing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS for fear of hurting the liquidity and functionality of the U.S. mortgage market.

Fitch Ratings released its global rating methodology for rental fleet ABS. Its criteria addresses and mitigates key risks present in rental fleet ABS deals, which include counterparty risks such as the bankruptcy of the rental fleet firm and of any major manufacturer supplying vehicles to a securitized vehicle fleet.

BB&T Corp. cautioned that it could experience "elevated charge-offs" in the third quarter as it gets more aggressive in disposing of bad loans.

Both refinancing and purchase activity declined in the holiday shortened week ending Sept. 10 even as mortgage rates slipped lower, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Markit will be providing liquidity metrics and composite liquidity scores for European ABS and leveraged loans that are covered by its pricing services, according to a release from the firm.