Finance

Moody's Investors Service became the second rating agency to restore Ford Motor Co.’s investment grade rating, a move that allows it to release the assets it uses as collateral for its outstanding loans – including its trademark blue oval symbol.

Bank of America is in the market with a $2 billion package of mortgage servicing rights tied to loans that reside in private-label securitizations, according to bidders and investors briefed on the package.

Sallie Mae will issue at least $6 billion or go up to $10 billion of SLABS this year. However, Kenneth Fischbach, director of capital markets at the firm, is envisioning around $8 billion of SLABS issuance from Sallie in 2012. These remarks were made at the American Securitization Forum annual meeting held this week in Washington D.C.

Panelists at this week's American Securitization Forum annual meeting drew comparisons between the mortgage market bubble to the one that is happening right now in student loans.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg expressed his support for the development of a U.S. covered bond sector at the American Securitization Forum's (ASF) annual meeting. The gathering is being held in Washington D.C. this week.

Freddie Mac has a new offering of its structured passthrough certificates that are backed exclusively by multifamily mortgages with a 7-year term worth roughly $1 billion.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS should be combined into a single security, according to panelists at this week’s American Securitization Forum annual meeting being held in Washington, D.C.

Panelists at this week’s American Securitization Forum annual meeting fear that reform efforts around shadow banking will significantly curtail credit from non-bank intermediaries.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has sued Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and other banks for a cumulative $92 million in damages on MBS, alleging that shoddy appraisals and other underwriting defects tainted their sale.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has barred the former CEOs of U.S. Central Federal Credit Union and Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union from working for, or with, any corporate credit union due to their roles in two of the biggest credit union failures.Both credit unions went bust because of faulty MBS investments.

BNP Paribas has a €437million ($558 million) securitization of French auto loans.

Nearly 165,000 borrowers have filed requests for reviews on how their servicer treated them in foreclosure—to see if they are entitled to damages—according to new figures released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

PHH Corp. Monday morning named former General Electric energy executive David Tucker president of its mortgage division.

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) looks set to enter the U.S. covered bond market following the green light given by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Friday.

A new auto fleet lease deal and equipment lease securitization join the consumer ABS primary pipeline this week.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today resumed its auction of Maiden Lane III's holdings in the Duke CDO. Bids are due on Thursday, May 24.

In a report released on Friday, Barclays Capital analysts highlighted the National Information Center's 1Q12 consolidated financial statements for bank holding firms.

Efforts to bring back a private-label RMBS market have not been quick, nor — dare I say —wholly successful at this point. But they are persistent, which is among the reasons why I think they will eventually succeed.

ABS sector spreads have steadily tightened over the past year, according JPMorgan Securities' most recent weekly. This tightening has been caused by both by improving credit and negative net supply.

It might be said that over the past three years a mortgage banker couldn't give away "legacy" mortgage servicing rights. (Just ask the megabanks, especially Bank of America.) As for the new stuff, buyers were plentiful — but only at their price.