People
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein recently hired Mark Opila, who had been at Chase Securities prior to its merger with J.P. Morgan. Opila joins the sales team, and reports to Keith Fell, North American head of sales.
Dresdner also hired David Schwartz as the director of the structured credit product marketing group, reporting to Fell as well. Schwartz was most recently at Chase, but had left Chase prior to the bank's merger with J.P. Morgan.
Deerfield Capital Management has hired John K. Brinckerhoff, to start in mid-April, as a managing director for the group's marketing effort. Brinkerhoff will report directly to Scott A. Roberts, president and chief investment officer of Deerfield.
Brinkerhoff was most recently at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, as national sales manager for the firm's fixed income division.
Carl Kane has joined Trepp LLC as President and CEO, replacing Rick Trepp, who stepped down but will continue as Chairman of the Board of the company. Trepp LLC is a provider of CMBS information, analytics and technology. Kane, 53, joined Trepp from KPMG Consulting where he was national practice leader in real estate consulting.
News
Last week's announced acquisition of Tyco International of CIT Group Inc. does not affect CIT's securitization program, according to company officials.
"CIT expects to continue its funding plans both in the unsecured and secured markets," said Frank Garcia, senior vice president of securitization at the company. This is part of the overall policy to treat CIT as a stand alone subsidiary of Tyco
The company issued $4 billion in ABS last year and is planning to match the amount this year. The commercial finance firm is hoping to become the number one issuer in equipment-backed ABS, while expanding into the Canadian asset-backed market. (ASR 2/5/01).
Fitch has raised the AA/V1+' local government investment pool (LGIP) rating of the Riverside County Investment Pool to AAA/V1+' and removes the new AAA/V1+' rating from rating watch evolving. These rating actions reflect the full repayment of principal plus accrued interest of the pool's position in $39.7 million of commercial paper (CP) issued by PG&E Corp. (PG&E) due to mature on Jan. 22 and aggregately made up about 2.2% of the portfolio.
PG&E announced on March 2 that it had received a $1 billion loan from General Electric Co.'s GE Capital unit and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc that allowed the company to pay outstanding debt obligations on which it had already defaulted, including a $501 million in payments to CP holders.
The AAA/V1+' rating reflects the improved credit quality of the pool's portfolio with the full repayment of the PG&E CP. It also reflects the fact that the pool continues to be invested in high-quality assets.
The European Securitization Forum (ESF) is proposing a series of practices that are geared towards providing better information to the market. The practices include a proposal calling for offering documents to have separate and clearly designated disclosures summarizing the content, timing and means to provide post-issuance data. The proposals are based on findings of a survey conducted last year.
The new proposals follow a set recommendations released in 1998 that called for regular, ongoing post issuance deal reporting and the standardization of the reporting elements and definitions.
The Office of Thrift Supervision is easing its capital requirements on residential mortgage loans as well as land and commercial construction loans. Under a proposed rule, one- to four-family originations with loan-to-value ratios of less than 90% will qualify for a 50% risk-based capital charge. This proposed change would bring thrift capital requirements into line with bank capital rules. The OTS also wants to eliminate a requirement that thrifts deduct from total capital the portion of a land loan or nonresidential construction loan that has an LTV ratio of more than 80%. The comment period on the proposal ends May 14.
Residential mortgage delinquencies rose 50 basis points during the fourth quarter to 4.54%, according to a quarterly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. The MBA National Delinquency Survey also showed that the percentage of loans on which foreclosure was started during the quarter fell 2 bp to 0.29%, while the percentage in foreclosure at the end of the quarter rose 1 bp to 0.85%. "The increase in the delinquency rate is significant, but not a surprise given the fourth-quarter economic slowdown," said Douglas G. Duncan, MBA's chief economist. "Real GDP growth was only 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the slowest pace in six years." The quarterly rise in delinquencies was the third in a row, bringing the increase to 82 basis points over that period.
Calendar
March 26-27: New York, NY-The Strategic Research Institute will hold the fourth annual Asset Backed Commercial Paper Forum at the Grand Hyatt. For more information call 800-599-4950 or visit www.srinstitute.com.
March 28: New York, NY-Ginnie Mae presents the third annual investor symposium. For more information visit www.ginniemae.gov or call (301) 721-5950.
April 1-3: Orlando, Florida-Standard & Poor's will host its annual Structured Finance Seminar. The keynote speaker will be Robert B. Reich, the former Secretary of Labor during President Bill Clinton's first term. For more information, call Standard & Poor's Events Marketing at (212) 438-2800, or visit www.standardandpoors.com.
April 23-24: Washington D.C.-The Strategic Research Institute presents the second annual forum on Securitization of Student Loans. For more information visit www.srinstitute.com or call 888-666-8514.
June 27, 2001: The Regency Hotel, New York, NY-IIR presents Investing in Mezzanine Finance. For more information call (888) 670-8200 or visit www.IIR-NY.com.
