ABS

The decline in commercial real estate activity appears to be slowing, although it is expected to remain weak into 2010, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said today.

Former Royal Bank of Scotland loan desk senior vice president has joined FBR Capital Markets, Leveraged Finance News has confirmed. Joseph Brosnan is now in the credit sales and trading group at FBR’s New York office.

The Dutch human resource services provider Randstad Holding launched a €125 million ($177 million) standby facility for the securitization of accounts receivables.

In the last year Joseph J. Murin and Brian Montgomery presided over the resurgence of government lending in the mortgage market. Now they want to help fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The recent reversal of some positive technical conditions in the CMBS market supports the need for clarification of the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) supporting the sector as well the extension of the TALF program, according to a NewOak Capital report.

Single-family housing starts rose 1.7% in July following a 17% surge in home construction during the previous month.

Freddie Mac appointed mortgage industry veteran Bruce M. Witherell as chief operating officer effective Sept. 14.

Fitch Ratings said today that the performance metrics of commercial real estate (CRE) continues to deteriorate at an unprecedented pace. The CRE market is where significant risk exposure exists for the majority of the rating agency's U.S. bank universe.

Integrated Asset Services (IAS) announced the launch of Statebridge. The new company will provide customized and investor-focused servicing for the mortgage industry.

Most of the major credit card trusts showed generally positive performance over the July

Greek Bank Piraeus Bank Group completed three new loan securitizations totaling €3.5 billion ($4.9 billion).

National Australia Bank plans to buy Challenger Financial Services' mortgage business, along with A$4 billion ($3.2 billion) of residential mortgages held in warehousing for A$385 million.

Marc Seidner has landed at PIMCO, where he takes on the role of executive vice president and portfolio manager at the firm’s Newport, California office.

Mortgage loan delinquency, borrowers 60 or more days past due, increased for the tenth straight quarter, hitting an all-time national average high of 5.81% for the second quarter of 2009, according to the latest data from TransUnion.com.

CIT Group successfully completed a tender offer, the company said today. Bondholders representing 59.81% of CIT's $1 billion in outstanding floating-rate senior secured notes tendered their bonds by the offer’s expiration date of Aug. 14. The bonds mature today. Despite this success, analysts have strong doubts about CIT’s ability to avoid bankruptcy.

MF Global expanded its fixed-income business and introduced a new institutional sales group.

The U.K's low interest rate environment is supporting lower-than-expected levels of bank possessions. This bodes well for U.K. RMBS, said analysts at Moody’s Investors Service.

Moody’s Investors Service has softened its view on the risk of the Turkish government meddling in financial future flow deals, an unambiguous positive for transactions backed by diversified payment rights (DPR) and credit card vouchers (CCV).

The Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department today approved an extension to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF).

The City of New York is in the market with a $59 million deal backed by tax liens. JPMorgan Securities is leading the offering.