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Ken Mulford was recently hired by American Capital Access as a managing director in the ABS/MBS credit & investment department, where he will be heading a group that will purchase assets for structured finance-backed CDOs. Mulford had been with Merrill Lynch & Co. for five years as the top banker in mortgage-related assets. With Mulford in place, ACA plans to become a regular issuer of structured finance CDOs, with two to four offerings a year going forward.

Merrill Lynch has hired esoteric asset specialist Drew Nugent away from Lehman Brothers to work as a vice president in the global asset-based finance group at the firm. Nugent, who will report to managing director and group head Mike Blum, will be involved in the origination and repackaging of non-real estate collateral. Nugent had been with Lehman for less than a year. Prior to Lehman, Nugent was the aircraft securitization analyst with Fitch Ratings.

CDC IXIS Financial Guaranty (CIFG) has received its license to write insurance in New York, simultaneous to the hiring of two more former MBIA staffers, Rich Zoghed and Zhenguin Lui. Both are reporting to group-head Jeremy Reifsnyder, who left MBIA to join CIFG in April (see ASR 4/15).

Meanwhile, Lori Evangel is no longer heading credit derivatives at MBIA, and has moved into the firm's risk management group. Reportedly, MBIA is bringing in Chris Weeks from the Australia office to head the derivatives and secondary market practice.

William Ross and Galvin Alexander have joined ABN AMRO's asset securitization team. Ross joins the team as head of ABS research and Alexander will head the esoteric corporate securitization team. Ross joins the team from Merrill Lynch where he was part of the European research team. Alexander joins from JPMorgan where he worked as head of securitization for corporate and sovereign clients.

Alex Levin, formerly from Dime Savings Bank, has joined Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. Levin will be responsible for the continued development of the company's VectorsTM Suite of analytical models for mortgages and other financial instruments. According to a release from the firm, Levin pioneered many creative approaches to valuing mortgages that allows for faster and more accurate valuation compared to conventional methods.

Ratings

Fitch downgraded the Class A and Class B tranches of the whole business transaction London International Exhibition Centre plc. The Class A notes were downgraded to CC' from BB-' and the Class B notes were downgraded to D' from CC'. According to Fitch, the downgrade of Class A notes follows the pending restructuring of the company and the downgrade of the Class C notes is due to the non-payment of the interest on the payment due date. The company has requested that Fitch remove the ratings in order to proceed with the restructuring of the bonds as part of their recapitilization plan.

News

FIFA President Sepp Blatter allegedly tried to conceal the true financial condition of the association by booking the proceeds of the football securitization, completed earlier this year, as profits. FIFA Vice President David Will says that under Swiss law the company would technically be considered insolvent and has requested that members reject the previous year's accounts and the upcoming four-yearly budget. If the allegations prove true, it's unclear how or if they would impact the private placement.

The Asset Securitization Forum is narrowing its search for a full-time Executive Director, with the remaining handful of candidates for this position currently undergoing a final round of interviews. A final selection and appointment of this staff position for the new interest group is expected in June.

CDOs

The $148 million Cedar Lake cashflow high yield for Trust Company of the West is reportedly subject on the MBIA triple-A wrapped notes at +55A/6ML via Bear Stearns (A/L 4.5y-4.7y). The top class will likely price within the coming weeks or sooner, market sources report.

The short average life on the triple-As derive from 30% of ongoing excess cashflow (after a senior fee) being allocated to pay the Class A-1L principal. The 7.75-year WAL Class B-1L has equity upside and starts with a rated coupon of +350/6ML to yield +400bp/6ML to +600/6ML, according to investors.

The reference pool is 90% junk bonds and 10% bank loans with an initial Moody's Investors Service WARF of 4770 (Caa1).

Calendar 2002

June 2-4: New York, NY - Standard and Poor's will host the 2002 Insurance Seminar for insurance industry professionals and investors. In support of the revitalization of New York, the conference will be held at the Grand Hyatt New York. For more information call 212-438-2800.

June 2-5: Whistler, BC, Canada - Insight will host the Fifth Annual Asset Securitization Forum ABS 2002. For more information call 1-888-777-1707 or visit www.insightinfo.com.

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