ABS

Boutique invesment bank Williams Capital Group (WCG) hired Joseph Fichera, who is chief executive officer of Saber Partners, as senior advisor to the firm.

Fitch Ratings, in a recent report, updated the “Challenge Factors” (CFs) assigned to 36 emerging market countries in 2009.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft hired Joseph Beach for its Charlotte office as special counsel in the capital markets department. His practice will focus on loan finance and securitization.

Fitch Ratings' ABCP credit outlook for 2011 remains stable, which is in line with the outlooks for the global financial institutions that are the liquidity and credit enhancement providers to ABCP programs.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) released its detailed agenda for its ASF 2011 conference that will be held in Orlando, Florida from Feb. 6-9.

Sidley Austin promoted Chicago-based lawyer T.J. Gordon to partner in its structured finance and securitization and syndicated and leveraged finance groups.

Martin Fingerhut, previously a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon's (Blakes) financial services group and chair of the law firm's structured finance group, is moving to Cassels Brock & Blackwell, another Canadian law firm based in Toronto. Fingerhut was hired as a senior partner and head of the firm's securitization group.

The primary market for European covered bonds saw substantial volume sold in the first month of the year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a fact sheet this morning on a rule requiring ABS issuers to disclose the history of both the requests they received and repurchases they made related to their ABS outstanding.

Standard & Poor's put 1,981 structured finance tranches in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on creditwatch negative yesterday as a result of the revision of its counterparty criteria.

South Korean cross-border issuance of ABS will be spurred along by two developments in 2011, according to a report on structured finance in ex-Japan Asia by Moody’s Investors Service. One is the maturity of several credit-card and auto loan deals this year. The other is the arrival of potential new originators among credit card businesses freshly spun off by banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) will not exercise its authority under the Dodd-Frank Act to reclaim or recover assets transferred by a financial company into a securitization, said FDIC acting FDIC General Counsel, Michael Krimminger in a letter to the industry.

This week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules that would require most ABS issuers to still file periodic reports for the life of the publicly registered ABS.

U.S. money market funds (MMFs) and banks located in peripheral European countries continued reducing their holdings of ABCP over 4Q10, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Markit has acquired QuIC Financial Technologies,a risk analytics solutions provider.

Bingham McCutchen has elected 13 lawyers to its partnership. The promotions follow a year when the law firm expanded its key practices in the global markets, including launching its Frankfurt-based financial restructuring practice. It also grew its Hong Kong office.

Pooling streams of income from unusual sources like billboard advertisements. franchise loans, cell tower leases and tobacco settlement fees are making a comeback.

CNH Capital is in the market with a transaction called CNH Wholesale Master Note Trust Series 2011-1. The offering is managed by Deustche Bank Securities.

Swiss Re Capital Markets privately placed €75 million ($97 million) worth of notes covering French windstorm events.

U.S. Bank National Association, which is U.S. Bancorp's lead bank, has completed the purchase of the domestic and European-based securitization trust administration businesses of Bank of America. The deal closed on Dec. 30.