Finance

New Residential Investment Corp., fresh off a substantial first-quarter reduction of its asset holdings, is now planning to securitize the receivables on its $200 billion servicing portfolio of Fannie Mae-owned mortgages.

As Las Vegas opens back up to tourists, MBS investors are being asked to roll the dice on the lodging industry that has been conspicuously absent from recent conduit deals amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

As they prepare to exit government conservatorship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have enlisted the investment banks to help them boost capital and evaluate market opportunities.

Westlake Automobile Receivables Trust 2020-2 pools a portfolio of loans for mostly high-mileage used-vehicles financed by the privately held Westlake through independent and franchise dealers. The deal includes a $370.9 million triple-A tranche (as preliminarily rated by S&P Global Ratings and DBRS Morningstar) that benefits from 42.75% initial credit enhancement.

The leveraged loan market, long favored by private equity firms to fund LBOs, has lagged. The largest buyers of the debt - vehicles known as collateralized loan obligations - are not purchasing as much as they used to as they deal with the wave of downgrades that has hit many of the companies they already hold.

But deal sponsors are primarily restricting property assets to the lower risk multifamily and office buildings that lenders are more confident will weather the economic strains brought by the coronavirus pandemic.

The expected rise in refinance volume overrides pessimism about purchase activity for their businesses.

Mortgage rates increased slightly for the second consecutive week, buoyed early on by positive economic news such as the jobs report that came out last Friday, according to Freddie Mac.

The Federal Housing Administration's move to insure loans with forbearance could help support homeownership opportunities constrained by the coronavirus if one change was made to it, trade groups said.

The new $1.2 billion InSolve Global Credit Fund IV will pursue a subset of the alternative asset manager’s specialty in non-performing distressed loans, including those in insolvency, restructuring or liquidation, according to a company release.

Barclays Commercial Mortgage Securities Mortgage Trust 2020-C7 is backed by a pool of 49 fixed-rate loans collateralized by 153 commercial properties – of which 17 loans are tied to multifamily/manufactured housing properties representing 35.4% of the pool balance.

If delinquency rates rise, all four stand-alone firms would have a capital shortfall.

Potential COVID-19 stresses include a rising tide of unemployed borrowers missing payments and seeking extensions, as well as falling used-car values.

The captive-finance lender for General Motors is providing lower expectations for the vehicles' future residual values, compared to its prior lease ABS deals, in recognition of the likely severe recessionary impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Hudson Americas is pooling its next aggregation of non-qualified, high-balance mortgages in a new securitization that is exposed to a large share of borrowers seeking or already receiving pandemic-related forbearance or deferral on payments. So far, a little over half of those granted the allowance have yet to skip any payments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seeks to address challenged posed by the sunset of the London interbank offered rate at the end of 2021.

The new FHFA rule sets a percentage-based threshold to measure compliance, rather than Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

The FHFA looks to shed light on the amount of funds Fannie and Freddie will need to hold for their risk-sharing deals.

The firm also predicts that the coronavirus pandemic will delay the GSEs' release from government control.

Global Lending Services, a subprime auto lender that has ramped down its expansion plans for 2020 amid the coronavirus outbreak, is proceeding with its second auto-loan securitization of the year.