Sallie Mae is planning its third securitization of government guaranteed student loans of the year, according to a presale from Fitch Ratings.
The $1.246 billion SLM Student Loan Trust 2013-3 consists of three tranches of 'AAA'-rated, floating-rate notes totaling $1.211 billion and $35 million of floating rate, ‘A’ rated Class B notes.
While this deal features a minimially smaller subordinate level of Class B notes, 2.79% compared with 2.85% in 2013-2, it has greater overcollateralization, about $10.24 million compared with $9.95 million.
Sallie Mae will be servicing the notes.
The collateral consits of Federal Family Education Loan Program loans, which are insured by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) for at least 97% of principal and accrued interest.
Fitch has a assigned a negative outlook to all existing and new issuances of ‘AAA’ rated tranches of FFELP securitizations due to a ‘Negative Rating Outlook’ on the long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings of the U.S.
Fitch as also assigned a ‘Rating Watch Negative BB+/B rating to SLM Corporation, of which Sallie Mae is a wholly owned subsidy.
This is the Sallie Mae's first securitization since announcing plans to split into two seperate entities, one that manages its existing loan portfolio and one that makes new private student loans. Fitch, following an on-site visit to SLM's loan servicing operations, declared that it "expects that servicing disruptions as a result of the split to be minimal."
