ABN Amro has closed its first-ever ARM securitization. Lehman Brothers was lead underwriter on the deal. The bank is anticipating doing another ARM transaction before the end of the year.
The $580 million offering was backed by $440 million in 5/1 ARMs and $140 million in 3/1 ARMs.
Alongside the ARM transaction, ABN Amro also came to market with a $402 million securitization backed by 30-year fixed-rate, jumbo mortgages and an $81 million offering of 15-year fixed-rate, jumbo mortgages. Goldman Sachs was lead underwriter on both deals.
All these offerings were issued out of ABN Amro Mortgage Corp., which is a shell company only used for issuing securities.
For its November schedule, ABN has already traded about $500 million worth of jumbo fixed-rate mortgages through Lehman.
ABN also did a number of whole loan sales on the ARM front. Sources at ABN said that an issue on the whole loan front is the fact that currently banks are having tremendous run-off or are losing assets due to the acceleration in prepayments. Through whole loan sales, they are able to replace these assets.
Meanwhile, ABN's Dutch arm is also considering accessing the MBS market.
