Five prime lenders have launched $5.5 billion in new loan- and lease-backed securitizations, including the second transaction of the year for Ally Financial.
The $1.02 billion Ally Auto Receivables Trust 2017-2 is a pooling of indirect loans originated by affiliate Ally Bank to franchise dealers, primarily for new cars. The deal has four classes of senior notes that have been triple-A rated by both Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service, similar to its debut 2017 deal in January.
This week’s rush of auto ABS presale reports included three bond offerings backed by primarily new-car loans by three long-established securitizers in the captive-finance space: American Honda Corp., Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. and Hyundai Capital America.
Ford Motor Credit emerged with its first auto-lease securitization for the year.
Ally's senior notes benefit from 5.85% credit enhancement, similar to other Ally deals since 2014. Securing the notes are the principal balance of 67,771 contracts averaging $15,049, primarily issued to buyers of Chevrolet, GMC and Ford brand vehicles. Some credit deterioration has set in: Fitch noted a slight decline in credit quality: the weighted average FICO of 739 in the early statistical pool compared to recent deals, and riskier loans extending beyond six years comprise over 65% of the collateral balance.
Moody’s made note of the decrease in subvened loans (5.5% of the loan balance), reflecting the loss of captive finance business from GM and Chrysler.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the lead arranger; underwriters also include Citigroup and Societe Generale.
Honda Auto Receivables 2017-1 Owner Trust is a $1.28 billion transaction backed by 79,235 new and used consumer loans for Honda and Acura vehicles. Borrowers in the pool have an average balance of $16,180 and a strong credit profile, with an average FICO of 766.
The note structure is in line with nearly all recent Honda securitizations, with four classes of senior notes: a $225 million money-market tranche with a preliminary F-1/P-1 short-term rating from Fitch and Moody’s, respectively; a $468 million fixed-rate Class A-2 series due 2019; a $467 million, four-year Class A-3 notes tranche; and a $490 million Class A-4 series due 2023. Honda will slate $32.05 million as residual certificates. The notes carry a standard 2.75% CE that prior deals have carries; all of the notes have preliminary triple-A ratings.
One change from previous deals is the increase in loans with terms in excess of five years. HAROT 2017-1 has 24.95% of the pool comprised of 60-plus month loan originations, a peak level for the trust.
BofA Merrill Lynch is the lead underwriter, and is working with joint bookrunners Deutsche Bank and Mizuho Securities.
Nissan will sell $1 billion in bonds in its debut deal of the year (Nissan Auto Receivables 2017-A Owner Trust), secured by a pool of 50,499 loans with a principal balance of $1.11 billion. The note classes include a short-term $233 million A-1 class due 2018; a split fixed- and floating-rate tranche of Class A-2 notes totaling $346 million (due 2020); a Class A-3 series due 2021 sized at $332 million; and a six-year, Class A-4 senior note tranche of $89 million of bonds.
Nissan’s CE of 4.25% is in line with prior Nissan trust issuances, as the collateral composition and credit-quality is consistent with recent pools. The average FICO is 775.
New vehicles make up 94.5% of the pool. The transaction features a sharp rise with Infiniti cars in the pool – a standard deviation for Nissan pools at the start of the year, with the influx of loans that come after a model refresh for the luxury car line.
This deal is also being underwritten by BofA Merrill Lynch.
The Hyundai Auto Receivables Trust 2017-A is a $1.21 billion notes transaction, backed by 71,274 loans with an average balance of $18,201 and an aggregate principal of $1.3 billion.
Hyundai’s deal is being rated by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s. The agencies assigned their provisional money-market F-1 and P-1 structured finance ratings to the one-year, $294 million notes in the capital stack. Triple-A ratings were assigned the split fixed-/floating rate tranche notes totaling $400 million and due 2020; the $368.43 million Class A-3 notes due 2021; and the $88.37 million Class A-4 notes due 2023.
Hyundai improved in its CE support level, which was lowered to 7.55% from the 7.7% level of its three prior transactions; that is due to a stronger credit pool profile including a 747 average FICO (up from a range of 743-745 in the last six deals) and a lower loan-to-value ratio of 98.2%.
But Fitch increased the base case loss proxy to 2.2%, up from 1.75% in its second deal in 2015. That was largely due to the inclusion of its vintage 2014-2015 loans that have been performing poorly compared to other years.
SG Americas Securities LLC is the structuring lead manager.
Ford Motor Credit’s first auto lease securitization for 2017 is being marketed with $1 billion in available notes, supported by a $1.12 billion aggregate value of 47,870 leases (or $23,525 per vehicle).
Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2017-A has senior note classes carrying triple-A ratings from Fitch and S&P, as well as an F-1/P-1 structured rating for the one-year, $170 million tranche. The Class A-2 notes will be divided among fixed- and floating-rate tranches that total $400 million; the Class A-3 notes total $242 million and the Class A-4 tranche will feature $90 million in notes.
One of the key changes from Ford’s single lease transaction from2016 is the increase in short-term leases: contracts with original terms under 36 months increased to 77.6% of the pool from 70.6%.
Ford Motor Credit has had 12 rated transactions since 2011, and has an existing managed portfolio of $974.5 million.
Citigroup is the lead underwriter.
