People
Peter Dallow, a former senior vice president at Prudential Securities, has been hired by Greenwich Capital Markets as senior VP of pass-through trading, the bank announced last Tuesday. He reports to Mike Chapey, head of pass-through and strips trading at the firm.
Last week Chris Dalton left the ABS group of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the third substantive departure in the last two months. Dalton's resignation follows that of Jon Bottorff, who left as the head of the firm's securitization effort in late March.
Janet Price, group managing director of CMBS at Fitch Ratings, has left the rating agency.
James Kelly is leaving Standard & Poor's to join West LB. Kelly, from S&P's surveillance group, is expected to start his new position on April 29.
James Hart, a senior CDO portfolio manager at Bankgesellschaft Berlin (Ireland) plc in Dublin, has left the firm. Dermot Hardy, senior manager at at the bank, and Harald H. Berlinicke, assistant director at Bankgesellschaft Berlin AG's London branch, have taken over as joint deputy heads of ABS investments. Overall responsibility for the securitization department at BGB (both investments and structuring) lies with Viktor Schneider, director at BGB in Berlin, who reports to Zoe Shaw, head of BGB's debt financing division, based in London.
Luiz Tess has joined the Latin American division of Moody's Investors Service as the new a Representative Director of Moody's America Latina in So Paolo. Tess was formerly an executive with Chase Manhattan Bank and Banco CCF Brasil. Tess replaces Christiana Aguiar and will be responsible for all aspects of Moody's business in Brazil. In his new position, Tess will report to David M. Moniz, team-managing director.
Moody's Investors Service has pumped up its Japanese structured finance group with an array of promotions. Naoki Yamauchi has been named representative director of Moody's Japan K.K. He will retain his current responsibilities for structured finance in Japan. Kei Kitayama will be reporting to Yamauchi in his new position as team managing director for Moody's commercial mortgage structured finance group. Structured finance activities in Asia will continue to be handled by Dan Curry, the group-managing director, international structured finance and to Tom Keller. Yamauchi has replaced Keller, who has assumed responsibility for Moody's offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. Keller, will be relocating to Hong Kong from Tokyo, will retain his current scope of responsibility as group managing director for Asia Pacific.
News
At press time the U.K. securitization market was awaiting the final word on whether the Enterprise Bill presented to Parliament at the end of March would pass unrevised. The bill addresses the exemptions from the drafted U.K. Insolvency Law, which indiscriminately dictates that all administrative receiverships be restricted or abolished.
In a presentation last week the Italian Treasury said it expected the Eurostat task force to accept the series of real estate transactions it completed in the last year as admissible in reducing debt. Eurostat is currently determining which European government securtizations would qualify. The Treasury also had hopes that the INPS transactions, which securitized social security contributions, would be acceptable, and said it planned to move ahead with more transactions securitizing these assets. The Italian Treasury has mandated the third INPS transaction and plans to complete a second real estate deal this year.
However, Treasury officials also indicated that the task force has expressed concerns with respect to future flow transactions like the Lotto deal it completed last year. As a result, the Treasury is withholding plans of coming to market with a second deal until final results are revealed this July. It also indicated that Eurostat's seeming reluctance towards government guarantees might mean that no guarantees will be provided to transactions going forward.
Ratings
Fitch Ratings downgraded the foreign and local currency ratings of Telecom Argentina SA (Telecom) to DD' from C'. The rating downgrade indicates that the company is in default and the recovery rate is expected to be between 50% and 90%. The rating action affects approximately $3.2 billion in debt obligations.
The downgrade comes on the heels of the company's announcement that it will suspend all principal payments on its debt obligations.
CDOs
Buysiders are hearing that JPMorgan is getting closer to launching the $500 million hedge fund-backed CFO, Man Glenwood Alternative Strategies I (MAST). One source inferred that the AAAs will likely be seen marketed at the +55-60bp area/6ML, a premium to other CDOs. Timing on official debt price guidance is expected to be late April. A spring closing was initially targeted. The equity is reportedly all sold.
MAST I will be managed by Man Investments Products (MIP). Chicago-based Man-Glenwood is the investment advisor for the transaction.
MAST will largely be based on the performance of the Man-Glenwood Multi-Strategy Fund Limited (MGMS), Man-Glenwood's flagship product.
Lehman Brothers has PIMCO's San Miguel $250 million ARB CF IG CBO in the market for a likely print this week. The AAAs are seen at +45A/6ML, which is four to five basis points tighter than the last two arb CF CBO pricings YTD.
