New issuance slowed last week, to a total of $5.5 billion ($4 billion priced as of press time), down from the near record $11 billion-plus the week previous. Deal pricing of note last week came from Sallie Mae, Chase and WFS Financial with smaller, but notable, deals hitting from CompuCredit and Saxon Asset Securities.
The week's largest deal came from student lender Sallie Mae, which priced a $1.5 billion deal via the joint leads of Banc of America Securities and Merrill Lynch. The third securitization of the year for the unit of USA Education Inc. once again offered investors the choice of both three-month Libor and 91-day T-Bill indexed senior paper. Investors favored the Libor-indexed supply, as only $150 million of Treasury paper was placed.
Staying in the student loan sector, Colorado Student Obligation Bond Authority sold $63.8 million of a single-tranche fixed-rate deal via niche player, St. Petersburg, Fla.-based William R. Hough & Co. The 4.1-year offering priced to yield 37 basis points over comparable swaps.
Jumping in quickly with an even $1 billion of five-year credit card-backed supply, Chase Credit Card Master Trust offered floating-rate senior and fixed-rate single-A rated subs via JPMorgan. The benchmark issuer proved its status in the sector, pricing the $844 million senior class to yield 10 basis points over swaps, on par with the most recent five-year deal from Citibank and two basis points tighter than where MBNA priced a five-year senior May 17.
Entering the market late last week, WFS Financial had not priced a planned $1.2 billion of a non-prime auto loan securitization as of press time Thursday, but was seeing strong enough demand to increase the deal size from an initial $1 billion and still launch Thursday at levels one basis point tight to initial guidance. The series 2001-C deal, led by Credit Suisse First Boston, was oversold in all classes at levels of five under five-month Libor, 12 over EDSF, 14 over three-month Libor and 25 over swaps. Pricing was set for Friday.
After skipping the second quarter, home equity lender Saxon, brought a larger-than usual home equity deal, tapping the market with a $650 million senior/sub offering via the lead of Greenwich Capital Markets.
The first offering as a stand-alone firm went well as demand drove offered spreads tighter than initial guidance had predicted. After a restructuring of the offering that saw a $149 million AF1 senior class redistributed into the remaining Group I classes, spreads continued to tighten and the deal priced without a hitch.
Subprime credit card issuer CompuCredit, in the market with $375 million of a three-year offering via Barclays Capital and Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown jointly. As of press time the series 2001-1 deal had yet to price, despite offered spreads of 35 to 40 basis points over one-month Libor for the AAA-rated senior class.
Also set to price past press time, Fairfield Resorts was marketing a $213 million timeshare receivables-backed offering led jointly by Banc of America Securities and Banc One Capital Markets. The offering features a $133 million two-year senior class, talked in the 60 basis point area over comparable swap rates.
