Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. is out of the starting blocks in 2016 with a $1 billion auto loan securitization in its first deal of the year.
The structure of the Nissan Auto Receivables 2016-A Trust (NAROT) is divided among five tranches, and will be backed from loans originated and serviced by NMAC for new and used Nissan and Infinity cars and light-duty Nissan trucks.
Fitch Ratings has assigned an ‘F1+sf’ rating - the rating agency's equivalent 'AAA' rating for short-term notes - to the one-year $220 million Class A-1 notes and ‘AAAsf’ ratings for the remaining tranches: $210 million in ‘A-2a’ notes due 2019; $175 million in ‘A-2b’ notes due 2019; $305 million in ‘A-3’ notes due 2020; and $90 million in ‘A-4’ notes due 2022.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is underwriting the loans. The interest rate is to be determined.
The 55,256 loans in the portfolio average $20,785 with average terms of 65.97 months, and include loans up to 73-75 months – the seventh such pool from NAROT to include terms beyond six years. As with other loan pools, NMAC is securitizing prime loans with average FICO scores of 763 for primarily new vehicles (93.10% of the loans).
The loans are geographically diverse, with Texas (15.64%), California (11.96%) and Florida (8.11%) having the most loans in the pool.
Consistent with recent transactions, the 2016-A notes incorporate a sequential-pay structure and a initial hard credit enhancement of 4.25%.
