People
Wachovia Securities recently hired Chris Pink, formerly of London-based Quadrant Capital. He will be working with Russ Andrews on the syndicate desk as CDO product manager with particular focus on the European distribution of CDOs. Timothy Lyons will be assuming most of his responsibilities at Quadrant.
IBC World Markets named Michelle Carson an executive director in its securitization group. Carson was most recently at Whitehall Asset Management as a senior managing director in sales and marketing. She spent the majority of her career at Citibank, and has nearly 20 years of investment experience.
News
The dispute between Banc of America Securities and its five ex-employees that jumped to UBS Warburg earlier this year (See ASR 4/12/02) is now in arbitration, according to BofA spokesman Jeff Hershberger. BofA is seeking $20 million in damages from its former employees, Shahid Quraishi, Paul Scialabba, Peter Faigl, Reggie de Villiers and Dan Huang. In addition the temporary restraining order that had prevented some in the group from contacting BofA clients, has been lifted.
It appears that the long awaited full-blown local securitization market in Mexico is finally approaching. The regulatory changes and continued low interest rates have helped to spin the market. According to a report from Standard & Poor's, the federal government's drive for increased transparency has also shifted the Mexican securitization market further away from cross-border transactions, as the necessary pieces are falling into place for strong growth in the domestic market. "The current climate for structured finance transactions in Mexico is conducive to national-scale transactions," said Juan Flores, an associate director with S&P in Mexico.
Ratings
Standard & Poor's lowered its long-term counterparty credit rating on Banco Santander Central Hispano, SA to single-A from single-A plus, reflecting heightening risk in Latin America. At the same time, the A-1' short-term counterparty credit rating on SAN was affirmed and the outlook is stable. Additionally, all of the global subsidiaries ratings were lowered due to the downgrade of the parent company. "Increasing volatility in Latin America, especially in Brazil, is augmenting the latent risk SAN faces through its large accumulated investments in the region, which amounted to $16.6 billion at June 30, 2002," said Jesus Martinez, a credit analyst with S&P. "While the bank's risk from investments in Latin America has heightened, its capital ratios have only moderately increased, while unrealized capital gains on equity holdings have declined sharply, diminishing the capacity of the bank to strengthen the balance sheet and cope with future problems," said Martinez.
Calendar 2002
September 5-6: London, England: The Strategic Research Institute will present The Premier European Forum on ABCP. For more information visit www.srinstitute.com/ca273
September 10-11: Berlin, Germany: The Information Management Network will host the fourth annual summit on German and Northern European Securitization. For more information, visit www.imn.org/a397/m/
September 12-13: Berlin, Germany: The Information Management Network will sponsor the fifth annual CDOs 2002: Brave New World conference. For more information, visit www.imn.org/a398/m/
October 6-9: Miami, FL: The Strategic Research Institute will host the The ABS South Beach Industry Summit. For more information visit www.srinstitute.com/ca280.
October 9: New York, NY - The Bond Market Association presents the Annual Awards Dinner. For more information, call 212-440-9429 or email mgarcia@bondmarkets.com.
