Auto ABS are revving up this week as a number of companies in the sector are planning to sell their securitizations including Ford Motor Co., Ally Financial, DriveTime, Honda Motor Co. and Harley Davidson Credit Corp.
Ford Credit Auto Owner Trust 2012-C is the third public prime auto loan transaction of the year for the issuer.
Moody’s Investors Service assigned the deal’s Class A-1 with a provisional rating of ‘P-1 (sf)’. The rating agency also assigned ‘Aaa (sf)’ provisional ratings for the deal’s Class A-2, A-3, and A-4. Meanwhile, Class B was given a provisional rating of ‘Aa1 (sf)’, class C was assigned ‘Aa2 (sf)’, and class D has a provisional rating of ‘A2 (sf)’.
Underwriters on the offering are BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Securities, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Meanwhile, Ally Financial has two dealer floorplan transactions under its Ally Master Owner Trust 2012-3 and 2012-4, the Class A for these deals are worth $350 million and $175 million, respectively.
The underwriters for the Class A of both series are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Agricole Securities and RBS.
The offering is backed by a revolving pool of receivables arising from the purchase and financing by motor vehicle dealers of their new and used car inventory and light or medium duty truck and van inventory.
Harley Davidson Credit Corp. is selling a transaction under its Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Trust 2012-1. The securitization, which is rated by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, is worth about $519 million. It is backed by motorcycle contracts.
For the deal’s Class A-1, Moody’s and S&P, respectively, assigned provisional ratings of ‘P-1 (sf)’ and ‘A-1+ (sf)’ while the Class A-2, A-3, and A-4 was each given a provisional rating of ‘Aaa (sf)’ and ‘AAA (sf)’. The offering’s Class B was assigned ‘Aa2 (sf)’ and ‘AA (sf)’ while the transaction’s Class C was given ‘A2 (sf)’ and ‘A (sf)’.
Other auto deals include Honda’s $1.25 billion Honda Auto Receivable Owner Trust 2012-3 with leads RBS and Deutsche Bank Securities. Fitch Ratings said that the credit quality of the securitization, as measured by the weighted average FICO score of 752 and internal credit score tiering, is consistent with pools prior to 2012 and 2011 . The subvented collateral totals 72.19%, which is the highest to date. New vehicles reached 86.77% in the offering, which in line with prior transactions, while the pool has 13.1 months of seasoning, Fitch said.
DriveTime also has a $250 144A transaction that might price next week with lead managers Wells Fargo Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities and RBS, according to Bloomberg.
Overseas, Volkswagen Financial Services AG completed Driver Brasil One ABS on July 13. The transaction, which is worth 1 billion Brazilian real ($490 million), comprises receivables of Banco Volkswagen SA in San Paulo, the news service reported. The deal’s tranches A and B were placed with investors.
In 2012 so far, auto ABS volume has reached $54 billion through 64 deals versus total issuance of $68 billion in 2011, Nomura Securities said. The firm noted that this year's number comprises roughly 57% of total issuance in consumer and esoteric ABS. Nomura believes that after such a strong showing, the auto ABS sector might experience a slowdown in new deals for the rest of 2012.
With this pace, analysts projected that total auto ABS issuance for 2012 will be close to $80 billion, although they noted that it may be higher due to the tight spreads and solid new vehicle sale numbers.
