Mexico truck/bus loan deal comes into view

Only a few weeks after talk surfaced that Mexico's Scotiabank Inverlat has won a mandate for the country's first auto-loan backed deal (see ASR 8/9, p.1), Moody's de Mexico has put out a release on the transaction, sized at roughly Ps500 million ($44 million). The originator is Servicios Financieros Navistar, a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S.-based Navistar International Corporation. Instead of being auto loans per se, the collateral is actually comprised of truck and bus loans. Mexican state development bank Nacional Financiera is providing a partial guaranty of no less than 17% of the Class A notes, which will make up 96% of total issuance. The rating from Moody's is 'Aaa.mx' on the national scale. Standard & Poor's is heard rating the deal as well. While all the loans in the underlying pool initially bore fixed rates, about 41% will eventually reset to floating rate of 6% over the benchmark TIIE.