Hong Kong Mortgage Corp. (HKMC), the territory's state-controlled secondary mortgage company, last week priced the latest issue from its Bauhinia RMBS program. HSBC was sole lead on the HK$2 billion ($257.2 million) issue.
Backed by a pool of residential mortgages acquired from the Hong Kong Housing Authority, the transaction is the first to include tranches not guaranteed by HKMC. This was made possible by Moody's Investors Service recent upgrade of the agency to triple-A.
The deal features three non-guaranteed fixed-rate tranches with bullet maturities and a subordinated, fully-guaranteed floating rate piece.
All the fixed-rate notes are rated Aaa'/'AAA' by Moody's and Standard & Poor's. The HK$300 million A1 piece, which has a maturity of one year, offered a coupon of 4.07%; the HK$740 million three-year bonds paid 4.18%, while the HK$700 million of seven-year A3 paper priced at 4.28%.
As of press times, coupons on straight government bonds with the same maturities ranged from 3.68% to 3.83%.
Additionally, the HK$260 million subordinated piece - rated Aaa'/'AA' - priced at 18 basis points over one-month Libor for a seven year maturity; equivalent to 4.34% on a fixed rate basis.
HKMC officials said the deal attracted interest from a range of institutional investors, including pension funds, insurance companies and banks.
Meanwhile, price guidance has been released for Citigroup Global Markets' first trade receivables ABS, launched via the ABS Global Finance SPV. The bank is self arranging the $198.9 million offering, backed by trade finance loans originated by its branches in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (ASR, 11/20/06).
The deal comprises five rated tranches; all of which have expected average lives of two years and a legal maturity of four years.
Indicative pricing for the $186 million A-class notes - rated triple-A by Fitch Ratings and S&P - is between 10 and 12 basis points over one month Libor, while the $7 million of single-A-rated C-bonds are expected to offer a spread of around 50 points.
Additionally, the $3 million of triple-B bonds and $2 million double-B tranche are respectively being marketed at 100 and 300-325 points over Libor. Indicative spreads have not been released for the $0.9 million single-B piece.
The deal is expected to close within the next two weeks.
Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), the Hong Kong and London listed emerging markets bank, last week priced its third synthetic CLO. The bank was joint arranger with Lehman Brothers on the deal - sold via the Start SPV - that transferred the risk on a $1.5 billion pool of corporate loans.
All five rated tranches, which have expected maturities of 3.5-years, priced inside indicative guidance.
The $56.25 million senior A-class notes - rated triple-A by Fitch, Moody's and S&P - finished 28 basis points over three month Libor, having been marketed in the low- to mid- 30s range. The result was five points tighter than where the senior paper priced on SCB's previous CLO, completed in June.
Additionally, the $42.25 million double-A piece offered a pickup of 39 basis points, while the $22.5 million single-A and $37.5 million triple-B tranches respectively ended 70 and 175 points over Libor. The $30 million double-B piece offered a spread of 390 basis points.
Investor allocations were being finalized as of press time.
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