Finance

Despite several attempts, the senior loan market has thus far failed to build on any kind of meaningful and sustained momentum. Up to this point, in early March, the efforts have been marked more by the failings of some familiar faces than by the new stars that were expected to materialize out of the shadows of the hobbled lenders.

Property valuers and loan servicers may be too cautious when reviewing the European commercial property markets and the approach may encourage excessive conservatism to be built into valuations and work-out strategies, said Fitch Ratings.

CIT Group announced that it has closed a new $1 billion committed U.S. vendor finance conduit facility with Barclays Bank as administrative agent and three additional banks as committed lenders.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is weighing the possibility of issuing securities backed by $50 billion of MBS that belonged to failed corporate credit unions.

Swiss Reinsurance said it has obtained an additional $120 million of natural catastrophe protection through the Successor X program.

The Obama administration's latest foreclosure prevention plan got an A for effort from most observers, who said it targets the right group of borrowers — the unemployed and those whose mortgages exceed the value of their home.

Fitch Ratings launched its Maturity Repayment Index, which measures the proportion of the total matured loan balance that has been successfully repaid.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) announced Friday that a bankruptcy credit event had occurred in respect to Ambac Assurance Corp.

Markit will be providing liquidity metrics for all credit default swaps, evaluated bonds, loans and ABS included in its pricing services.

Greek structured finance and covered bond transactions can still achieve 'Aaa' ratings as long as they are backed by sufficient protection, Moody's Investors Service said.

AmeriCredit Financial Services prices its Assured Guaranty Corp.-insured deal. The $200 million auto-backed offering is lead managed by RBS Securities and Credit Suisse.

Moody's Investors Service lowered the rating of the senior unsecured debt of Ambac Financial Group to 'C' from 'Ca.'

Remittance reports for the March distribution date or the February collection period reflected a turnaround in default trends, Barclays Capital analysts said. The gain was around 1 CDR, which follows a steady decline over the past few months.

Sharps SP 1 LLC launched an offer today to exchange 119 different CUSIPs of RMBS and ABS insured by Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. (FGIC) with an aggregate unpaid principal balance of round $9.6 billion.

The top four holders of second mortgages are now on board, but a government program to modify such loans in tandem with first liens will not be up and running for five months.

The Senate approved sweeping student-loan reforms Thursday, including the elimination of subsidies for banks to make federal loans.

While the CLO market still struggles to get back on its feet, the bank loan retail mutual fund market appears to be off and running.

Fitch Ratings has undertaken an in-depth analysis of 34 floating-rate U.S. CMBS transactions, totaling approximately $27 billion, with plans to resolve the Rating Watch Negative status on $25.5 billion of these bonds in the coming weeks.

New adjustments made to the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs will expand flexibility for mortgage servicers and originators to assist more unemployed homeowners and to help more people who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth because their local markets saw large declines in home values.

Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB) appointed Naseem Haffar as its U.S. head of loan sales and trading.