Tiering blurs ABS new-issue pricing

As the economic outlook has worsened, ABS investors have placed an increasingly higher value on the credit profile of issuers, sources note, with higher-rated finance companies consistently besting their middle- and lower-rated counterparts.

In the past two weeks, for example, ABS stalwarts GMAC and MBNA each brought deals that priced cheap versus comparable offerings from higher-rated entities.