New-issue supply slowed in last week's holiday-shortened session that preceded the global ABS conference held this week in Barcelona. U.S. primary market priced just $4.8 billion, as of press time, with an additional $4.9 billion of supply being announced late in the week.
The largest offering last week came from Sallie Mae, which has sold seven student-loan ABS this year, totaling $11.4 billion. The series 2003-6 offering, backed by 100% Ffelp loans, priced via Banc One Capital Markets and Lehman Brothers. All classes priced in line with initial price guidance and even in line with the five previous Ffelp loan-backed deals seen this year, despite the increased student loan supply. To date the student loan sector has totaled $15.6 billion of new issuance.
One-year, triple-A rated A1 paper priced flat to three-month Libor, with three-year A2s pricing at three basis points over three-month Libor. Five-year A3s priced at nine over and 7.9-year A4 paper came in at 20 basis points over three-month Libor. Double-A rated B class notes, with a 9.5-year average life, priced at 53 basis points over three-month Libor, two basis points inside of price guidance.
On a side note, SLMA 2003-6 represents the first time RBS Greenwich Capital, which acted as co-manager on the deal, has been included in the selling group on a Sallie Mae transaction.
Credit card ABS consisted entirely of de-linked issuance from Capital One Financial and MBNA America Bank. Cap One continued its second-quarter blitz into the credit card sector with a $225 million fixed-rate offering via Lehman. The three-year 2003-C2 deal, rated triple-B, priced at 265 basis points over swaps. Since pricing its first credit card deal in April, Cap One has priced $2.05 billion of credit card supply.
MBNA America Bank sold a pair of U.S. denominated deals, totaling $700 million, as well as a £200 million U.K. deal last week. MBNA's $500 million fixed-rate senior offering priced via Lehman at 12 basis points over swaps for the five-year paper. MBNA's $200 million floating-rate single-A rated B2 offering, with a three-year average life, priced via Deutsche Bank Securities at 39 basis points over one-month Libor.
In home equities, units of Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley each priced principal finance deals, while Accredited Home Lenders priced an offering it had been marketing over the past two weeks. Late in the week, deals broke from Lehman's SAIL issuance shelf as well as a re-REMIC from a new issuance trust, named AAA Trust.
Deutsche Bank's ACE Trust sold $436 million of collateral originated by Freemont Mortgage, pricing its 2.19-year triple-A floaters at 37 basis points over one-month Libor. Additionally, Deutsche Bank brought a $152 million MH offering from its ACE shelf, which is this week's business.
Morgan Stanley brought a $778 million home equity deal, backed by collateral originated by New Century Financial. The series 2003-NC6 deal saw its 2.91-year seniors come in at 36 basis points over one-month Libor. Subordinated tranches, rated single-A and lower, widened roughly five basis points from initial talk across the board, with the double-As pricing at 80 basis points over one-month Libor - in line with guidance.
Accredited Home Lenders priced its $303 million Ambac-wrapped subprime mortgage ABS via Lehman. While the 3.6-year fixed-rate A1 class priced at 132 basis points over swaps, the floating-rate 2.8-year A3 class priced at 38 basis points over one-month Libor.
Late in the week, new issues broke from AmeriQuest Mortgage, Credit Suisse First Boston's HEAT and Lehman's SAIL shelves, scheduled to price this week. Together, the three transactions total $3.9 billion of supply.
RBS Greenwich announced a unique, $449 million, re-securitization of collateral that had priced throughout this year. Totaling $449 million, AAA Trust 2003-1 is backed by entire tranches of deals previously issued by AmeriQuest Mortgage, Countrywide Home Loans, Long Beach Mortgage, GMAC-RFC and CSFB's issuance trusts. The last time RBS GCM had structured a similar transaction was last August, when it underwrote $1.5 billion of a re-REMIC on behalf of Freddie Mac, backed by previously sold EquiCredit collateral. The depositor on AAA Trust is listed as Financial Asset Securities Corp.
Although it hadn't priced as of late in the week, Franklin Auto was scheduled to price $319 million of subprime auto loan ABS via Citigroup Global Markets. The all fixed-rate deal, backed by a full MBIA wrap, was all sold as of late Thursday and was on track to price Friday. One-year A2 notes were marketed in the nine basis point area over EDSF, with the two-year A3 and 3.3-year A4 notes talked in the 15 and 25 basis point areas over swaps, respectively.
In foreign MBS, Australian Residential Mortgage Securities, or ARMS Global, was marketing $1 billion of 3.14-year Aussie MBS in the 23 basis point area over three-month Libor. ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank are jointly leading the deal, expected to price this week.
