Subprime lending

The collateral for the $550 million transaction is slightly weaker than that of its prior deal, but rating agencies expect cumulative net losses to be in the same range.

More than 45% of collateral for the $254.4 million CPSART 2019-A are either "preferred," "super alpha” or “alpha plus”; that's up from 42.4% of collateral for the prior deal.

The latest deal from the sponsor's DRIVE platform for deep subprime loans benefits from recent improvements in underwriting; both S&P and Moody's have lowered loss expectations.

It’s a trend that bears watching, particularly for holders of the riskiest securities issued in subprime auto securitizations, according to S&P Global Ratings.

The $175 million deal is backed by loans with an average balance of $2,365; fewer of them are "renewal loans" to existing borrowers who qualify to borrow more because of previous on-time payments.

The agency alleges the subprime auto lender violated consumer finance laws by misrepresenting the level of guaranteed insurance protection.

The rating agency is now considering lowering its BBB rating on the class B notes. The rating agency also downgraded the class C notes issued in the deal, for a second time, to CC from CCC+.

Subprime originations are climbing in multiple consumer loan categories, including mortgages, but the increase is much smaller in the home loan sector than it is in other markets, according to TransUnion.

Flagship, Santander Consumer USA and AmeriCredit are printing $2.3 billion in new notes backed by subprime auto-loan originations.

Both Kroll and S&P expect losses on collateral in the subprime consumer lender's latest deal to be higher than its 2017 deals; Kroll alone assigned a lower rating to the senior tranche.