Huntington National Bank priced $750 million of securities backed by prime auto loan receivables, in the first of what is expected to be two expected securitizations this year.
The transaction, called Huntington Auto Trust 2015-1, features four tranches of senior class A notes rated by Moody’s Investors Service and Standard and Poor’s. The $192.2 million class A-1 notes with a weighted average life (WAL) of 0.29 years are rated Prime-1’/’A-1+’ by Moody’s and S&P respectively; they yield 0.35%.
The $180 million class A2 notes with a WAL of 0.94 years pay 27 basis points over the Eurodollar synthetic forward curve; the $277.3 million class A3 notes with a WAL of 2.05 years pay 32 basis points over interpolated swaps; and $75 million of class A4 notes with a WAL of 3.22 years pay 30 basis points over swaps; all three classes are rated Aaa’/’AAA’.
The four senior tranches all benefit from 6.1% credit enhancement, according to S&P.
J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs are the lead managers. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Huntington Bank are co-managers on the deal.
The loans included in the pool have an average balance of $20,206 and pay on average an annual interest rate of 5%. The loans have on average a term of 5.6 years and have on average paid 15 months of installments. Over half of the loans in the pool were used to finance used cars, and 46% financed new cars.
In its presale report, S&P said that the high investment grade ratings of all the tranches reflects the credit quality of the underlying pool, which has a weighted average FICO score of 763, minimum score of 660, and weighted average seasoning of 15 months.
Steve Steinour, Huntingtons’ chief executive, announced during an earnings conference call last October that the company planned to tap the securitization market twice in 2015; prior to this year, it had not sold auto loan ABS since 2012.
