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Canadian Roundup: Scotia Tops Term, TD Reigns in CP

The boom in the Canadian ABS market in the first quarter 2000 has set up the first manager rankings scenario, with Scotia Capital on top. As for the asset-backed commercial market, TD Securities moved into the first place position, demonstrating aggressive market penetrations.

Of significance, in 1Q 1999, there were no public term deals in Canada.

This year, Scotia Capital led the $1.32 billion Hollis Receivables Term Trust deal, which closed in February. The Hollis deal was the largest public offering done in the Canadian securitization market to date.

"We're very pleased with the way the Hollis deal went," said Darcy Doherty, director of securitization at Scotia Capital. "Not only was it the largest public term deal ever but we also accessed a wide variety of terms. We did one, three, five and ten years."

Doherty is specially pleased with the fact that there was good buyer acceptance of the longer term notes despite the current volatile interest rate environment. "It's difficult to raise long money these days," he said. "We thought that was an exceptional effort on behalf of the sales force."

Aside from topping 2000 1Q issuance, Scotia Capital was also active in the term market in the first part of 1999, only one of two managers to be so. Scotia issued approximately C$1 billion through Trillium Credit Card Trust. It also led a reverse mortgage deal for Canada Home Income Plan (CHIP).

Aside from the Trillium and CHIP deals, Lehman Brothers led Copelco Capital Limited's C$113.75 million term offering through its Copelco Equipment Trust II.

Meanwhile, BMO Nesbitt Burns was lead manager in the second largest offering of 1Q 2000, Canada Trust's $1billion transaction done through Genesis Trust.

Also, TD Securities led another Genesis Trust offering worth $820 million just two months after the first Genesis deal and right after TD Bank acquired Canada Trust.

CIBC World Markets led Honda Canada's $480 HART securitization, which had a $200 million term component and a $280 million CP component.

The ABCP Side

On the commercial paper side, TD Securities was in the lead with C$18.56 billion worth of commercial paper based on outstanding. This is a significant rise from its 1999 showing of C$7.59.

"Darwin Receivables Trust has provided the bulk of the growth in our outstandings since the beginning of February," said William Furlong, managing director at TD Securities. Darwin Receivables, a single-asset seller formed by TD Bank, came out with a C$3 billion offering in February.

"One of the concerns we had with introducing this much paper into the market was to ensure that it was distributed in a responsible and even manner," said Furlong. "We were careful not to disrupt the operations of the broader asset-backed market."

TD Securities was followed by BMO Nesbitt Burns which had C$14.1 billion in CP outstanding at the end of March 2000. BMO Nesbitt CP volume was only at C$12.6 billion in the first quarter of last year.

On the other hand, CIBC has C$13.47 billion ABCP outstanding as of Q1 2000. The company's 1999 Q1 CP volume was C$12.87 billion.

Scotia Capital had C$5.65 billion worth in CP outstandings at the end of last quarter while it was at C$4.09 billion last year for the same period. Scotia Capital is a latecomer to CP securitization. Its first ABCP deal only happened in 1997.

Royal Bank of Canada's 1Q ABCP outstandings are C$3.44 billion as compared to its 1Q outstandings for last year at C$4.44 billion.

Nick Lewis, senior manager of securitization at North American Securitization in Royal Bank, said that the reason for the decrease in Royal Bank CP outstandings was the bank had to take accounts from its single sellers Luna Credit Card Trust and Superior Credit Card Trust to fund its Golden Credit Card Trust securitization.

The C$1.1 billion Golden Trust securitization, which came out in July 1999, was the first public term issuance of bank assets in Canada.

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