People
Providian Financial has hired Anthony Vuoto as chief financial officer, the company announced last week, replacing David Petrini, who plans to leave the firm. Vuoto had formerly been president of Bank One's First USA unit.
S.G Cowen has relocated John Chauvel to New York from Australia to head up the firm's U.S. term asset-backed operations, according to published reports. Chauvel, who brings experience in the auto loan and equipment sectors, started last Monday in his new position.
Chauvel will report to Greg Medcraft, global head of securitization for the bank. He replaces Barry Wood, who left the bank approximately two weeks ago. Taking over Chauvel's position down under is Sean Hogan, a former Westpac pro, who joined Soc Gen in 2000.
David Steel, formerly a managing director and head of mortgage-backed securities at Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp. (FGIC), has jumped to American Capital Access (ACA).
Gordon Baird joined the structured derivatives group at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in New York recently. Baird will be working primarily on credit and liquidity structures, both conduit-related and credit derivatives.
Scott McMunn, a senior CDO portfolio manager at Abbey National in London, has resigned to take a position at Deutsche Bank. McMunn will continue working as a PM at DBAB, sources said. He will start at the German bank in about six weeks. On McMunn's Bloomberg message profile, a note says, "See you all soon". Abbey National is said to have one of the biggest CDO portfolios in the world, at about $10 billion, McMunn stated at a CDO conference late last year.
News
Merrill Lynch's ABS research team is making a concerted effort to increase its coverage of structured finance CDOs. The new initiative is a result of the fact that the collateral backing new-issue CDOs has increasingly shifted away from high yield debt and into ABS, MBS and CMBS. Merrill's new focus follows a similar push into the SF CDO sector by Banc One, who recently hired ex-Wachovia researcher Rusty Hurst to focus on CDO research.
Miscellaneous
The asset-backed commercial paper market showed a modest increase in outstandings in March, inching up approximately $4.1 billion to $731.4 billion, breaking a two-month trend of declining volume, according to the Federal Reserve.
As overall CP volume declined $28.6 billion to $1.38 trillion, ABCP now accounts for more than 53% of the total market.
CDOs
Ares Asset Management L.P. of Los Angeles has hired Lehman Brothers for the Ares VI arb cashflow levarage loan-backed CDO. Senior management from Ares was reportedly visiting equity investors in Europe last week. The prior three deals for Ares have been CLOs.
The Credit Suisse First Boston CDO machine priced a $403 million plain vanilla arb cashflow IG CBO for Atlantic Asset Management, called Clearwater, at six-month Libor plus 42 basis points (MBIA wrap) and 49 basis points unwrapped (A/L 8.5y), which, as of press time, appears to be the only USD CDO print for last week. The next arb cashflow IG CBO is expected this week: PIMCO's $250 million San Miguel via Lehman Brothers.
A noteworthy point on Clearwater is the fixed-rate note triple-B pricing at 350 basis points (A/L 10.5-year), compared to the Aladdin CDO that priced its triple-B's at 325 basis points in late Jan. 2002, also via CSFB. Investors have commented that they are nervous about the trend of accounting irregularities at IG companies coming to the surface, which could result in rating changes.
Calendar 2002
April 7-10: Orlando, FL Standard and Poor's will host the 17th annual Structured Finance Seminar. For more information call 212-438-2800 or visit http://www.standardandpoors.com/ Events/Articles/pdf/PostcardforEBLAST.pdf.
April 15-16: Prague, Czech Republic The Bond Market Association, The American Bar Association and Standard & Poor's will host Sub-Sovereign Finance in the New Europe Conference. For more information, call 212-440-9429 or email mgarcia@bondmarkets.com.
April 22 23: Washington, DC - The Strategic Research Institute will host the Third Annual Student Loan Securitization Symposium. For more information visit www.srinstitute.com/ca271.
April 23: New York, NY Fitch Ratings will host a conference on regarding a the many issues currently impacting Latin America. The conference will be held at The Ritz Carlton and will touch on sovereign ratings, the banking sector, asset securitization, and corporate finance. Arminio Fraga Neto, Governor of the Central Bank of Brazil has been confirmed as speaker for the conference. For more information, visit http://www.fitchratings.com/corporate/presentations/latin_america_conference/index.html or call Sheila Robinson 1-212-908-0632, New York.
April 25-26: New York, NY - The Bond Market Association's 2002 Annual Meeting will be held at The Waldorf-Astoria. For more information, call 212-440-9429 or email mgarcia@bondmarkets.com.
