ABS

The year may have started off quietly for European securitizations, but it exploded on the covered bond front.

Albert Sohn, previously head of securitized products at Credit Suisse, will move into alternative investments in asset management at the bank. In his new position, Sohn will manage structured credit and residential real estate assets, according to an internal memo obtained by ASR.

In a report released today, Moody's Investors Service stated that its outlook is stable on REITs operating in all of the major property sectors, including office, retail, industrial, multifamily, healthcare and lodging industry.

CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric plans to issue a $1.7 billion utility tariff securitization.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) announced today that John Walsh, acting comptroller of the currency, will give a keynote speech at ASF 2012.

Zipcar issued a $50 million series of variable funding notes under its existing ABS facility, increasing its total ABS funding line to $100 million.

Specialty finance firm Imperial Holdings has announced that wholly-owned unit Washington Square Financial (WSF) entered into a forward purchase and sale agreement to directly sell up to $40 million of life contingent structured settlement receivables to Compass Settlements.

The fight over a capital surcharge for the largest banks took center stage in 2011, at least in the international Basel III process, as the chief executives of some major banks publicly clashed with regulators over the issue.

Long an adjunct of the insurance and reinsurance sectors, the catastrophe bond market appears primed to become a more mainstream allocation alternative in 2012. This shift is prompted by issuers' growing capital needs and the incentive that the risk from natural disasters it mitigates is not correlated with the manmade financial variety. While 2011 new-issuance volume is anticipated to end up just short of last year's numbers, and outstanding cat bond issuance remains about the same, indications point to a strong 2012.

In the preliminary ASR Scorecards database public lead manager rankings for full-year 2011, JPMorgan Securities maintained its No. 1 rank from last year to capture the top spot again this year with a 16% market share and $12.03 billion sold. For the full year 2010, the bank held the top slot with a 15.6% market share $8.36 billion sold.

To understand the role private-label mortgage financing, MBS players must first wait and see what the government's next move will be. It is not that securitization is not happening. It is just that all the activity in the market is via the GSEs.

The full implementation of Basel III is still years away, but it is already impacting key areas of the securitization market such as mortgage servicing rights. The impact of its liquidity ratios on market participants will likely be felt as early as this year.

Last year, securitization players found themselves stumbling towards recovery, as new regulations and a weak economy posed one hurdle after another for deal makers.

Structured finance players in Latin America pushed through 2011 with few scars, especially given the turmoil pounding European markets.

The need for private capital to return to mortgage financing is a major discussion point in the future of U.S. housing. REITs are an ideal vehicle for bringing in that private capital. However, before this can occur, a couple of things need to happen, said Calvin Schnure, a mortgage market economist at the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT).

Manager Activity: Autos Book Runner Amount (US$ Mil) Rank Mkt.

In the emerging markets at the edges of Europe, 2011 did not generate much excitement for global structured finance players; many of the deals that did go cross-border were purchased by multilateral banks. This is understandable given the crisis engulfing their neighbors.

Federal regulators are seeking comment on a proposal that aims to lessen banks' reliance on credit ratings by proposing three methods for assessing risk on firms' trading books.

Welspun Energy , India's biggest solar photovoltaic developer, which is backed by Apollo Global Management, is looking to securitize revenue from its 15-megawatt unit in Gujurat after three months of operation.