Finance

Allan R. Toole, previously portfolio manager at TCW and head of the firm's portfolio analytics group, is now chief risk officer and head of product development at DoubleLine Capital,

Matt Vernon was named short sale and REO executive for Bank of America Home Loans, moving to the loan servicing division from his role leading origination and cross-selling efforts.

Prepayments were expected to decline 8% on 30-year FNMAs and by 26% on GNMAs. Factors contributing to these expectations were a lower number of collection days — 19 versus 22, while the Refinance Index was 10% lower on average in December from November.

U.S. commercial property could be the cause for a new subprime crisis from 2010 onward, warned a research note published by Switzerland-based Investment24 Research.

The Federal Reserve intends to end its $1.25 trillion MBS buying program at the end of March, but if the problems resurface, the program will be restarted.

Moody's Investors Service will not issue new ‘Aaa’ ratings to Greek structured finance transactions or covered bonds until it concludes a review of these deals.

Highland Capital Management, an investment management firm based in Dallas, Texas, completed its CLO Value Fund I and that the fund has provided 138% gross

Finacity Corp. together with Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale facilitated a upsizing to $55 million of CHC Helicopter's European trade receivables securitization.

Residential Capital Corp. — which is on the auction block — posted a $4 billion loss in the fourth quarter after reclassifying some of its troubled mortgages and being forced to repurchase loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Boston-based State Street Bank and Trust Co. with misleading its investors regarding their exposure to subprime investments. At the same time, State Street allegedly selectively disclosed more complete information to specific buysiders.

Moody's Investors Service will be re-evaluating the assumptions it utilizes to rate auto lease deals that are exposed to EMEA residual value (RV) risk.

Mortgage rates bumped up slightly for most terms. However, they remained "relatively stable for a second week amid news of a strengthening housing market," said Freddie Mac Chief Economist Frank Nothaft.

It's still slow going for PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust. The real estate investment trust, run by veterans of Countrywide Financial Corp., said this week that it lost money during its first full quarter of operations — and an auction for a failed bank's loan portfolio.

At the American Securitization Forum conference held in Washington D.C. this week, The Future of the GSEs panel speakers called for a well defined and consistent mission for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Flagging growing concerns on Capitol Hill that commercial real estate losses could threaten economic recovery, a bipartisan group of 79 House lawmakers sent a letter Monday to federal regulators asking them to strengthen efforts to address the situation.

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) recommended that life settlement securitizations be prohibited by legislation or regulation.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not become large buyers of MBS this year and will maintain plans to reduce their total asset size, according to a new letter from their regulator.

The Carlton Group has been retained on behalf of various CMBS trusts to sell roughly 66 nonperforming loan and REO assets worth $307 million and located throughout the U.S.

Jefferies has hired Sharif Anbar-Colas as its global head of CLO and CDO trading, an addition that is part of the firm's expansion of its fixed income business, the New York-based investment bank said today.

The consumer ABS space may have performed well through the worst of the crisis, but panelists discussing opportunities in non-mortgage ABS at the American Securitization Forum’s (ASF) 2010 gathering reminded its audience that uncertainty, fostered by new and potential regulations, could stand in the way of a more robust recovery.