Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2021-B is preparing to issue $1.1 billion in auto asset-backed securities backed by a pool of leases on Ford brand vehicles.
RBC Capital Markets is lead underwriter on the transaction, for which Ford Motor Credit Company, LLC is acting as sponsor, servicer, seller and transferor.
On a collateral pool level, the residual value of the underlying leases in the trust is $944.9 million. The collateral auto leases also have a weighted average (WA)
original term of 36.2 months, with a remaining term of 24.5 months, according to Fitch Ratings.
The Ford Credit 2021-B trust has 42,554 leases in the trust, a bit of a smaller count than the 54,756 leases in the 2018-A trust, and the 2017-B trust, which was underpinned by 52,766 leases. All of the underlying leases are financing new cars, Fitch noted, adding that leases under 36 months for the original term represented about 82.3% of the pool.
The lessors have a WA FICO score of 759.
In terms of geographic diversification of lessors, Michigan accounts for the largest state, with 20.6% of the pool; New York accounted for 15.4%; and California accounted for 9.5%.
Broken down by vehicle type and model, the largest type is the crossover utility vehicle, with 59.8%; followed by trucks, representing 23.3% and sport utility vehicles, 9.28%. The largest model represented is the Explorer is 23%; followed by the F-150, at 19.8% and the Escape, at 9.9%.
Recreational vehicles are in the portfolio, too, and Fitch says it has noted a significant improvement in performance of leases linked to those vehicles. The leases performed better in 2010-2011, as the portfolio saw residual gains for the first time since that economic downturn. Through June 30, 2011, RV performance experiences a 43.2% gain, up from 8.74% on a year-over-year basis.
Fitch expects to assign an ‘F1’ rating to the $146 million class A-A notes’; ‘AAA’ ratings to the A-2 through A-4 classes; a rating of ‘AA+’ on the class B notes and ‘A+’ on the class C notes.
