ABS

ABS investors' search for yield has taken them to an interesting place, where products that were once marginal are now the main attraction. In vogue are decidedly esoteric deals, ranging from whole business securitizations to structured settlement transactions.

European securitization market players will apparently put more "skin-in-the-game" than their U.S. counterparts if U.S. regulatory requirements for risk retention move ahead as written.

As with their counterparts in other areas of structured finance, emerging market players have been mulling over the question of where exactly their deals fit in the new regulatory landscapes of Western Europe and the U.S.

The financial crisis reached its apex in fall 2008 when major Wall Street firms collapsed. But for the big three rating agencies - Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings - the crisis began at least a year before, when they started issuing massive downgrades of RMBS.

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

Standard & Poor's, along with Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, downgraded billions of dollars structured transactions in the summer of 2007, resulting in a wave of criticism. So when Deven Sharma was named S&P president on Sept. 1 of that year, he kicked off a reform program that continues today.

Under the brand esoteric comes an array of asset classes. Right now the industry is seeing whole business deals such as the issuance of a $220 million transaction for Church's Chicken earlier this year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today voted unanimously to propose amendments that would remove references to credit ratings in several rules under the Exchange Act.

Drive-in restaurant chain Sonic Corp. said that certain of its subsidiaries are going to refinance their outstanding securitization debt with a new securitization debt facility. The underwriter on the transaction is Barclays Capital.

Turkey’s DenizBank has issued €300 million of bonds backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs) through five series of notes via WestLB. The transaction was a club deal, going to multilaterals the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the International Finance Corp. (IFC) and the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG). The arranger itself took a piece as well.

When global regulators last year announced final international capital and liquidity standards, bankers for the first time in months breathed a sigh of relief, appearing even to welcome the agreement.

An ABS backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs), through Banco Santander Brazil, is currently making the rounds on the private placement market.

Deutsche Bank Securities hired Douglas Runte as a managing director and head of aviation debt research within its markets division.

Avis Budget Car Rental is marketing ABS backed by rental fleet vehicles totaling $600 million.

Sole lead Santander Investment Securities priced today a $160 million, 10-year deal backed by payment obligations linked to a pool of equipment that Mexico’s Corporacion Geo uses to build houses, said a source close to the deal. The yield came to 9.75%. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s rated the deal ‘BB-’. Fitch said that the rating is linked directly to the ‘BB-’ rating of Corporacion Geo, as the company is on the hook for the payments. The payments are made under the terms of a service agreement entered into by Corporacion Geo, various of its units, and Geo Maquinaria in exchange for the machinery utilization services for Corporacion Geo and its units.

Navistar Financial Corp. (NFC) is issuing a $120.1 million trucking and equipment loan securitization.

The European Union (EU) and U.S. regulators might be on the same page when it comes to trying to get the securitization market to be more risk averse. However, their different approaches have left a gap that needs to be eventually bridged, industry sources said .

With the bulk of Kazakh transactions backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs) having been paid down over the past few years, it is refreshing to see that ATF Bank is extending the life of its outstanding DPR notes, even with only $100,000 left.

Turkey’s Denizbank is out with a $300 million structured deal consisting of five series, all scoring ‘BBB+(exp)’ from Fitch Ratings. West LB is the arranger. No word yet on whether private-sector investors are potential buyers but one market source said that a multilateral is buying at least a portion of the deal. In an interview with ASR earlier this year, Noel Edison of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development had indicated that the institution would be funding additional Turkish banks this year via DPR programs following a deal in late 2010 with Garanti Bank.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is reportedly publishing a letter later this month outlining plans for a data warehouse of underlying loans that back ABS deals.