Finance

The Federal Reserve announced in August that the central bank would be purchasing Treasurys by using the proceeds from maturing MBS to support the country's economic recovery.

Citigroup has arranged a $600 million CLO that will be managed by Guggenheim Investment Management, according to sources.

While the Wall Street reform bill passed this summer did not directly address the GSEs, it nonetheless affected future prospects for restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As I wrote last month, the bill created a series of impediments to any timely revival of the private-label MBS market, making the housing markets highly dependent on agency-backed funding. As a result, GSE reform will be limited by the need to avoid short-term disruptions that would freeze financing for the housing markets.

The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy has proved to have long-reaching repercussions for the European ABS market.

The risk of non-calls in European RMBS was reignited last month when Portuguese bank Caixa Economica Montepio Geral said it would not exercise the scheduled call for its Pelican 2 RMBS.

Mortgage applications continued to increase, but at a slower pace even as mortgage rates set new record lows.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a report Tuesday cautioning credit rating agencies about deceptive ratings conduct.

CMBS servicers are not only performing loan extensions but have ventured into other forms of loan modifications as well, according to a just-released NewOak Capital report.

Volkswagen Leasing is prepping to launch a €475 million ($602 million) auto lease ABS deal dubbed VCL 12 with pricing scheduled for next week, published reports indicate.

Rabobank hired Tony Muoser as a managing director for its renewable energy and infrastructure finance (REIF) Americas group. He will be based in New York.

Kurtzman Carson Consultants (KCC), an El Segundo, Calif.-based provider of bankruptcy administrative services, added a director of corporate restructuring services, the firm announced Tuesday.

There is nothing new about Freddie Mac's "new streamlined, easy refinance" program announced in August, Barclays Capital analysts said in a report released today.

Home prices rose 4.4% in the second quarter on a sequential basis, erasing a 2.8% decline in the first quarter, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller house price index released Tuesday morning.

Perhaps tipping its hand on how the fair-value fight is going, a key trade group is shifting the industry's line of attack.

New regulations will soon restrict a common way of compensating residential mortgage brokers and loan officers.

Lloyds TSB marked the end of the summer holiday with two deals, one that priced ahead of the long bank holiday weekend and a second deal that is slated to begin marketing.

While questions about the rights of CMBS investors in bankruptcy cases and other risks persist, there are offsetting trends that continue to drive the securitized commercial mortgage market toward a comeback, according to Mark Edelstein, chairman of Morrison & Foerster's real estate finance group.

Jumbo loan production — in particular non-GSE jumbos — has increased nicely the past few quarters, but it appears that hopes for a revival in the securitization market for these mortgages may be stillborn.

MBS, especially those paying higher rates of interest than comparable Treasurys, are gaining an increased amount of attention from investors who have been sitting on cash.

DBRS is requesting comments on the proposed legal criteria for European structured finance deals.