New issuance slowed last week from the moderate clip at which supply had hit. Issuer tiering persisted in holiday shortened trading, as Chase Manhattan Bank, American Honda Finance and Nissan Motor Credit all had little difficulty pricing deals. In off-the-run assets, a timeshare receivables offering did price, albeit after some fine-tuning of the senior tranche.
Marketing since late the week before, Marriott Vacation Club Trust 2002-1 was a $500 million timeshare resort loan ABS in the market via Credit Suisse First Boston. While subordinated classes saw good demand from the start, the $420 million 3.81-year A1 was a tough sell. Sources close to the situation blamed the large size of the tranche, which led to $260 million being carved out into a new fixed-rate triple-A A2 class.
After the slight restructuring mid week, the deal priced, although the senior floater cheapened 20 basis points from initial price guidance to price at 70 basis points over one-month Libor. The fixed-rate A2 priced at 102 basis points over Swaps.
High-quality auto loan paper continues to see the best reception from investors. The latest captive to take advantage of this sentiment was Honda, which brought its fourth ABS of the year, the first time it has issued in each quarter. Banc of America Securities and JPMorgan Securities acted jointly as lead managers on the offering, which - like other top-tier captives - saw strong demand.
"I think that investors were chasing this paper because they also realize that most of the prime quality [auto] supply is behind us, and that if they were going to buy before year's end they would need to get involved," a trader close to the situation said.
Spreads came in tighter than guidance, with the one-year class pricing at 10 basis points over EDSF and two year pricing at 10 basis points over swaps. Honda 2002-4, however, did not price inside of the most recent Toyota offering, which priced its two-year class at 9 basis points over Swaps.
Following the recent Volkswagen lease ABS on Nov. 7, it was time for Nissan to bring its second-ever auto lease ABS, through Merrill Lynch, which led its 2001 transaction. After seeing no supply throughout the year, this was the third auto lease ABS of the quarter.
The offering being a Rule 144A limited the investor base somewhat. Nissan priced outside of the recently set benchmark levels. There were some moral victories for Nissan though, as it broadened its investors base, adding crossover buyers from its loan-backed offerings and up to seven new accounts to the book, according to Jennifer Kuritz, Nissan's corporate manager of securitization.
In credit cards, Chase sold $1.1 billion of three-year notes, its second credit card deal in as many weeks. Led by JPMorgan, the triple-A class priced at six basis points over one-month Libor and the single-As priced at 37 basis points over one-month Libor.
Household Finance was set to price its $840 million private-label credit card deal, reportedly two-times oversold as of late Thursday on its seniors, and on track for a Friday pricing.
