The U.S. ABS primary market remained hot, with $14.5 billion marketed throughout the week. For a change, the auto sector saw the most supply, pricing over $6 billion, including a pair of firsts as well as some familiar names. Home equity supply dipped, however, pricing only $2 billion as of press time. The credit card and student loan sectors, meanwhile, had a pair of deals each.
While supply came at a fast clip over the past two weeks, pricing nearly $30 billion total, activity should wrap up early this week, as participants migrate south for the ABS East conference, set for Boca Raton, Florida, this Wednesday through Saturday.
But, as is the case following the annual gathering, supply is seen picking up where it left off through Thanksgiving.
In autos, AmeriCredit Corp. was back in with its fourth wrapped deal of the year, and Bank One N.A. offered its first auto loan ABS since 1997. Bolstering the auto sector were deals from the fleet lease and dealer floorplan sectors, including the first-ever floorplan securitization from Nissan Motor Credit.
The $724 million Bank One Auto Securitization Trust (BOAST) saw heavy demand, pricing inside of last month's Toyota Motor Credit offering, on both a yield and spread basis.
AmeriCredit's $1.2 billion offering via Barclays Capital and Wachovia Securities, the second to be wrapped by MBIA this year, also saw heavy demand, with orders filled before official price guidance could be released. Spreads for AMCAR 2003-DM cleared four to five basis points tighter than last month's FSA-wrapped transaction.
A pair of wholesale dealer floorplan ABS hit the market last week, from first timer Nissan and GMAC. GMAC hasn't priced a floorplan deal since August 2001. Nissan, led by Morgan Stanley, priced its three-year floater at six basis points over one-month Libor, following an increase in size - also Nissan's first - to $950 million from $800 million. GMAC's $2 billion SWIFT 2003-A VIII floater, with a five-year average life, priced its senior class at 13 basis points over one-month Libor via a three-way joint lead of Banc of America Securities, Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers.
Avis Group's AESOP vehicle sold $500 million of fleet lease ABS via Barclays and Citigroup Global Markets, with its three-year triple-As pricing at 38 basis points over swaps and its five-year triple-A floaters pricing at 38 basis points over one-month Libor.
ARG Funding returned to the market for the first time since the groundbreaking 2002-A transaction, which allowed former parent ANC Rental to navigate its way through bankruptcy.
This time around, new parent Vanguard Car Rental USA acts as servicer in the uniquely structured offering (see related story p. 11). Lehman Brothers is leading the $700 million fixed- and floating-rate deal.
MBNA America Bank and Capital One Financial each completed $500 million floating-rate senior offerings from their respective de-linked issuance trusts. Tapping the 10-year part of the curve, MBNA priced inside of guidance at 26 basis points over one-month Libor via Banc One Capital Markets and Citigroup.
Capital One, also tapping the long end, sold seven-year seniors via Deutsche Bank Securities and Merrill Lynch at 29 basis points over Libor.
Sallie Mae was back in the primary market with its third private student loan ABS of 2003 via JPMorgan Securities, Lehman and Merrill, totaling $1.35 billion. College Loan Corp. was marketing $1.3 billion of floating-rate notes via Citigroup and UBS, which saw a slight restructuring mid week and was on track for a Friday pricing.
In a rare slow week for the home equity sector Countrywide Home Loans sold the largest offering with a $1.57 billion 2003-W16, backed by a full Fannie Mae-wrap.
Morgan Stanley completed its third HE-series transaction of the year, totaling $562 million, which comes fresh off the heels of its $1.4 billion 2003-NC10 deal the previous week.
Late in the week, new issues were announced from Household Finance and New Century Financial. Household's $1.03 billion floating-rate 2003-HC2 floating-rate deal was set for a late last or early this week via Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.
New Century Financial also entered late in the week, with a $1.3 billion fixed- and floating-rate series 2003-5 offering via Bear Stearns, which was also hoping to wrap up before the market cleared out for Boca Raton this week.
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