The U.S. ABS primary market wrapped up last week with nearly $8 billion priced in a wide variety of asset classes and a full pipeline for the week ahead. While home equity ABS continues to dominate supply, last week saw equipment loan collateral, student loans and a NIM, in addition to a high-quality auto loan and credit card subordinate tranche.
USAA, with arguably the best performing collateral in the auto sector, tapped the market for $1.8 billion at levels only a select few captive lenders can fund. The once-a-year ABS issuer took advantage of the absence of top-tier auto loan supply over the past month, when Volkswagen priced its $1.2 billion 2003-1 deal June 18. Led jointly by Banc One Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank Securities, USAA cleared at four basis points over EDSF for one-year paper and five basis points over swaps for two-year supply, each one basis point inside of VW's comparable classes. The three-year A4 tranche priced to yield three basis points over swaps, on top of VW.
MBNA Bank America brought $250 million of five-year triple-B rated C6 notes from its MBNASeries issuance vehicle. Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers acted as joint leads for the floating-rate offering, which priced at 118 basis points over one-month Libor, the same level as the 2003-C5 class MBNA priced earlier in the month.
John Deere Credit Corp., which last sold equipment loan ABS in November 2001, came back to the ABS market last week, with a $750 million 2003-1 offering via Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Securities. The auto-like structure offered investors yield pick up on the USAA offering, pricing four, five and eight back of USAA for one-, two-, and three-year paper, respectively, at levels of eight basis points over EDSF as well as 10 and 11 basis points over swaps, for two and three-year triple-As
Student lender Nelnet priced $440 million of term and auction-rate notes through JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley at levels in line with the previous week's Sallie Mae deal. One-year A1 notes priced at one basis points over three-month Libor, with three-year A2s pricing at three over Libor. Five-year A3s priced at 11 basis points over, with the seven-year A4 class pricing at 20 basis points over - the exact levels Sallie Mae
saw for its 2003-7 transaction.
In addition to GMAC-RFC, which was on track to price $1 billion from its RAMP shelf Friday via Bear Stearns and Equity One, which priced its third home equity deal of the year - a $650 million offering via Wachovia Securities - there was a spate of transactions from dealer shelves. Also, Countrywide Home Loans Inc. and Redwood Trust's Sequoia issuance vehicle each priced deals.
AmeriQuest Mortgage's Argent shelf priced a $77 million floating-rate net-interest margin securitization, wrapped to a triple-A by FSA, via Banc of America Securities and Morgan Stanley jointly. The 2003-N1 offering, with a 0.9-year average life, priced at 27 basis points over one-month Libor. This follows AmeriQuest's first new issue from its Argent program exception shelf on July 2.
The forward pipeline still has the $195 million subordinated auto fleet lease securitization from Cendant Corp.'s Terrapin Funding vehicle, via Lehman and the $233 million auto lease-backed deal from Susquehanna Bancshares, led by Barclays Capital. Additionally, talk surfaced late last week of a $900 million Countrywide deal, featuring a full Fannie Mae W-series wrap, via Countrywide Securities.
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