Ford Motor Credit Co. will become the year’s first prime auto ABS issuer with its $1.5 billion securitization that is backed by prime auto loan receivables.
The deal, Ford Credit Auto Owner Trust 2014-A has been assigned preliminary ratings by Standard & Poor’s. The deal is structured with AAA’ rated, fixed-rate class A notes; AA+’-rated, fixed-rate, class B notes; and AA’ rated, fixed-rate class C notes. The class D notes will not be rated by S&P.
According to S&P, the weighted average FICO for the pool in this latest deal increased to 728 from 723 for the pool backing Ford’s 2013-C deal. The percentage of long-term contracts has also decreased to 697 from 695 and the pool’s seasoning increased to 7.4 months from 6.9 months.
BNP Paribas, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are lead underwriters on the deal.
