Whispers

Nomura Securities recently poached a pair of bankers from ING Barings to bolster its asset-backed effort. Continuing the mass defections among ING's ABS pros, Andy Yuder and Paul Richardson were hired as directors in Nomura'a ABS origination group, reporting to managing directors Evan Binder and Jim Lieblich.

Will Lloyd has resigned from his post as head of global securitization research at Barclays Capital to accept a position at independent research firm Bridgewater Associates. Bridgewater, based in Westport, Conn., offers investment strategy recommendations in three areas of expertise - currency, global bonds and inflation-indexed bonds. Lloyd starts at Bridgewater this week.

Taking over for Lloyd as head of global securitization research is Gary Jenkins in Barclays London office. The U.S. ABS research team - consisting of director Jeff Salmon and associate directors Juliet Jones and Joseph Astorina - will be headed by managing director and U.S. high-grade credit research strategy head Mark Pibl in New York, who in turn, will report to Jenkins.

ABS research associate Frank McCollum has left his position within the Banc of America Securities research strategy group to explore other opportunities. Taking over the bulk of McCollum's duties on BofA's research daily ABS FirstLook is Michael Johnson, who moved to ABS research from unsecured debt research in March (see ASR 3/10/03). McCollum had reported to BofA's head of ABS research Kumar Ayier.

Pat McCormick has joined bond insurer CIFG's marketing group, where he will be a director, reporting to structured finance head Jeremy Reifsnyder. McCormick previously worked at American Reinsurance, which has since backed out of reinsuring structured finance.

Devang Sodha has jumped to Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi from Credit Lyonnais, where he will hold the title of vice president. In his new position, he will report to Vince DeLuca, head of U.S. ABS for Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Sodha, an ABCP specialist had worked at Credit Lyonnais for five years.

CDC IXIS has hired senior associates Rob Stanley from FleetBoston Financial and Tim Morris from ING Barings. The pair will report to Ken Wormser, head of global ABS for CDC.

The Michigan Public Service Commission announced that it would allow CMS Energy operating unit Consumers Energy Co. to securitize roughly $550 million in stranded costs, according to wire reports. CMS has sold one stranded cost ABS in the past, a $468.5 million 2001-1 deal that priced Oct 31, 2001 via Morgan Stanley.

The Bond Market Association announced last week at the IMN/Fabozzi "Investor & Issuer Summit on Global ABS 2003" that its CDO committee has released its draft for the standardization of CDO trustee report. The survey, in the process of being sent out, asks investors how they prefer to see information presented in the usually scattered trustee reports issued monthly. There is no information available as of yet concerning the deadline for the comment period.

Additionally, TBMA said it would post CDO statistical data on its Web site available for download. Chris Ricciardi, co-chairman of TBMA committee on CDOs, said, "To the extent that the CDO market is more standardized, it will be more liquid." He acknowledged, however, that the main hurdle for standardization lies within the dealer community. TBMA also hopes to post on its site periodical reporting of analytical and statistical data for outstanding CDOs.

Independent corporate bond research firm Gimme Credit and third-party information provider creditex have announced a joint venture, aptly named Credit Derivatives Research LLC. The venture will provide independent research for the credit derivatives market. Based in New York, the new product will be spearheaded by Arthur Rosenzweig, managing director at Gimme Credit, who will act as CEO of Credit Derivatives Research. Further details, such as the format, distribution or timing of the new product, were not made available.

Standard & Poor's announced last week that it has cut the ratings of the eight aircraft- lease ABS rated by the agency due to "ongoing negative industry conditions" for the airline sector. Trusts affected by the move include: AerCo Ltd., Aircraft Finance Trust 1999-1, Airplanes Pass-Through Trust, ALPS Pass-Through Trust 1996-1, Aviation Capital Group Trust 2000-1, Embarcadero Aircraft Securitization Trust 2000-1, Lease Investment Flight Trust 2001-1 and Triton Aviation Finance.

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