ABS

Jefferies and Co., the principal operating subsidiary of Jefferies Group, hired Eric Ollom as senior vice president and chief strategist for Jefferies’ emerging markets sales and trading business, which forms part of the firm’s fixed-income division.

Senate Banking Committee members on Tuesday challenged a key call the Obama administration made on regulatory restructuring — to keep oversight spread over several agencies.

Treasury Department officials acknowledged Tuesday that new data on loan modifications showed that many servicers are underperforming in trying to carry out the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention plan, but they appeared to have little leeway to force improvements.

GE Capital is in the market with a dealer floorplan transaction. The lead manager on the offering is Banc of America Securities. The transaction is eligible under the Term ABS Loan Facility.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) has named Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr. as executive vice president, public policy and advocacy and head of its Washington, D.C. office.

GMAC Financial Services, New York, had an after-tax net loss of $3.9 billion for the second quarter 2008, which includes a $1.6 million loss on the disposition of international mortgage assets and provisions, impairments and reserves on U.S. mortgage assets.

The Treasury Department said the 38 servicers participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are conducting more than 235,000 trial modifications and released its first monthly report on each servicer's performance.

Pending home sales, a key leading indicator for the resale sector, were up in June for the fifth consecutive month, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Federal regulators are starting to put pressure on banks to recognize losses on second liens in markets where the first mortgage is underwater due to declining house values.

After filing the largest real estate bankruptcy case in history last April, General Growth Properties (GGP) has identified substantive consolidation of its special purpose entities (SPEs) as a real possibility in its proceedings.

The latest results from London-based HSBC Holdings show its mortgage business in the United States and two other regions improving in some respects, but runoff of troubled legacy assets still leaves U.S. operations with net losses.

Eight newly defaulted loans worth over $100 million have entered special servicing, according to Fitch Ratings in its latest edition of What's in Special Servicing, a report on U.S. CMBS. The agency said that recent defaults include two hotel portfolios, Red Roof Inn and Extended Stay.

Harbourmaster Capital Management announced its new business venture that will provide advice and asset management services to institutional clients, and will be solely focused on portfolios of ABS.

Barclays Capital, which brought in just over a third of the £2.9 billion its parent earned in the first six months of the year, has big hiring plans this year, mostly in Europe and Asia, its president told IDD on Monday.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said in a monthly report that completed loan modifications fell for a second-straight month in May, dropping to 10,400.

Mortgage servicers are urging the Treasury Department to relax some of the requirements of the Obama administration's loan-modification program, claiming the time-consuming process of gathering documents and collecting signatures has become a major impediment.

Total agency MBS issuance for 1H09 totaled $916 billion with net issuance at $286 billion.

Sorrento Capital hired Steve Ozonian as its executive chairman of the board. The addition comes closely after the group’s acquisition of REO.com, which is part of a plan to expand into the residential and consumer finance industries.

CIT Group's recent financial uncertainty has raised a lot of questions about what to expect when an ABS servicer faces the possibility of bankruptcy.

In March of 2007, HR Ratings in Mexico opened its doors. The moment seemed historically auspicious. The domestic debt market had grown into a formidable platform for issuers, with asset-backeds staging a placement record of around $6 billion in 2006. Rumblings from sub-prime told off a pesky but contained phenomenon up north.