Former National Century Financial Enterprises Director of Compliance
Brian J. Stucke recently pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy fraud charges filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, under a plea agreement. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil injunctive action against Stucke. Stucke is the second former NCFE staffer to enter a plea with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the second to be charged by the SEC. The first was Sherry L. Gibson, Stucke's former supervisor. Currently, there are at least five additional unnamed co-conspirators under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the SEC (see p. 6).
Mirsada Durakovic recently started in the Banc One Capital Markets research strategy group as an associate analyst, where she will work in all asset classes in a support role. She previously worked in the bank's conduit operations. She reports to managing director and U.S. ABS research head Alex Roever.
Norddeutsche Landesbank will continue expanding its securitization conduit group in 2004. In addition to a previously announced search for a vice president/senior transactor, the Asset Backed Finance group, headed by Omar Bolli, will add an AVP and an analyst. Also, the bank is seeking a senior credit analyst to cover ABS, MBS and CDOs that aren't structured by the bank. The credit function is headed by Stephen Hunter. E-mails should be sent to omar.bolli@nordlb.com
for securitization candidates and stephen.hunter@nordlb.com for credit analyst candidates.
Wall Street Analytics has launched a risk management and valuation product aimed at the CDO market, based on a Monte Carlo default simulation. The product - marketed to investors, collateral managers and underwriters - is available through the firm's Web-based CDOnet product.
Last week, Washington Mutual announced that it would lay off approximately 7,400 employees due to a slowdown in the mortgage-origination business. The lender also cut its earnings estimates to $4.15 to $4.25 from earlier estimates of $4.42 per share.
The $50 million insurance receivables securitization from Clark Consulting has yet to price, sources said, as investors have been unwilling to buy the $35 million subordinated notes. At issue is the risk surrounding treatment of bank-owned life insurance policies (BOLI), which arises around election time. Banc One Capital Markets is leading the transaction out of its Dallas office.
Sunset Financial Resources Inc., a Jacksonville, Fla.-based mortgage lender and REIT, has filed for a $125 million initial public offering of equity interest through underwriters WR Hambrecht and Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. The commercial and residential mortgage lender, formed in October, currently has $200 million of residential mortgage and commercial mortgage bridge loans in its portfolio and intends to purchase 750 residential mortgage loans totaling approximately $150 million, following the pricing of its IPO, according to the filing. The company intends to access liquidity via borrowings under reverse repurchase agreements, borrowings under a warehouse line of credit, and through securitizations.
According to market reports, a pair of firsts hit the Korean ABS market recently. The KRW500 million (US$420,000) transaction for Korea Highway Corp. is the first Korean transaction backed by toll-road fees as collateral. Hyundai Motors's KRW199 billion ($167 million) Autopia shelf represents the first-ever auto-lease ABS the emerging market has seen to date.
Gordon Brown, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, continued pleading his case for developing a long-term fixed-rate mortgage market in the U.K. In an interim report as to existing obstacles, findings show that buyers are reluctant to forgo the initial low payments and do not fully comprehend the risks associated with interest rate movement in the current short-term floating-rate market. The report also found that banks subsidize short-term discounts with standard variable-rate loans, further accentuating the gap between discount products and long-term fixed-rate products. The report concludes that more regulation is needed and discussion will be initiated with the Office of Fair Trading and Financial Service Authority.
The Wachovia conduit, WBCMT 03-C9 GDNC, was priced last week at the best levels off the year, said IFR Mortgage Data. The $1.1 billion conduit saw the A4 9.76-year WAL tranche print at 31 basis points over swaps, one basis point through guidance levels. This is also the tightest spread of the year for triple-A 10s, and the tightest since the swaps curve was implemented as a benchmark back in 1999.
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