RMBS

Eversheds has appointed structured finance and derivatives lawyer Kingsley Ong as partner in its Hong Kong banking and finance team.

The five largest servicers of residential mortgages — including Bank of America and Wells Fargo — may be the first to settle with 50 state attorneys general who are investigating foreclosure practices, according to combined press reports.

It is now clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are willing to make peace with banks by settling mortgage repurchase claims for some cash.

Janney Capital Markets named Noam Saxonhouse as director in real estate investment banking.

The multifamily REIT sector is now in a period of sustained improvement in terms of its fundamentals, said Moody's Investors Service in a new report released today.

The housing overhang, according to Amherst Securities Group (ASG) analysts in a report released today, is not only caused by the number of nonperforming loans currently in the market.

November was the best month of 2010 so far for the nation's private mortgage insurers in terms of new insurance written (NIW), while it was the second best for new applications.

Moody's Investors Service late last week downgraded $729 million of payment option ARM securities issued by Washington Mutual, Seattle, which is now the property of JPMorgan Chase.The collateral backing the securities includes first-lien, adjustable-rate, negative amortization mortgages.

Bank of America on Monday morning agreed to pay $2.8 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to resolve outstanding repurchase requests on loans Countrywide Financial Corp. sold to the GSEs.

Though the Basel II process to write new international capital standards lingered for nearly a decade, its successor has come a remarkably long way in just the past year.