ABS

Two-thirds of the 94,000 foreclosure sales in June involved properties previously financed by prime mortgages as the tide of subprime foreclosure sales has declined over the past four quarters, according to the Hope Now alliance.

Ambac Financial Group Inc., New York, said it expects to see second-quarter statutory loss and loss expenses that relate primarily to deterioration in second-lien and alternative-A credit securitized mortgage financial guarantee portfolios amount to $800 million.

Obama administration officials want servicers to pick up the pace of loan modifications and qualify at least 500,000 homeowners for 90-day trial modifications by Nov. 1, according to Treasury Department and HUD officials.

KKR Financial Holdings has delevered four of its CLOs to boost liquidity, and the company projects a quarterly profit, it said Tuesday.

Standard & Poor’s Tuesday evening slashed Ambac Assurance Corp.’s financial-strength rating to junk, saying assumed losses on insured mortgage bonds could wipe out the company’s equity.

The failure of yet another voluntary plan to rework mortgages is likely to renew a push for bankruptcy reform and other measures to force lenders to compromise with borrowers.

PCG Equity has acquired Academic Loan Group. PCG said it believes that the acquisition furthers its investment objective of acquiring quality assets that will produce superior long term returns, as ALG has syndicated billions of dollars worth of loans over time as a high quality portfolio of performing student loans.

House prices have reversed their steep decline and it appears home prices are finally stabilizing at mid-2003 levels, according to the May Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city house price index.

Both sides claimed victory after a U.S. District Court judge dismissed some of the charges made by FICO, Minneapolis, in a lawsuit against VantageScore Solutions LLC, Stamford, Conn., and two of the three credit repositories.

Ambac Assurance Corp. (AAC) released its estimated credit derivative impairment and loss as well as loss expenses for the second quarter, Ambac Financial Group said today.

Major trends seen in the July ABX remittance report are that modification rates remain low while prepayments picked up, loss severities remained largely unchanged, and REO buckets are still shrinking, according to a report from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Connecticut Higher Supplemental Loan Authority has a $30 million deal backed by private student loans. Goldman Sachs is lead manager on the offering.

Dan Toscano is leaving HSBC Holdings. He joined the bank in January 2008 as co-head of leveraged and acquisition finance in the Americas along with Tom Cole.

BTIG expanded its prime brokerage group, which will now offer fixed-income services such as trading and portfolio financing.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank on Monday said the House would approve regulatory reform by October and predicted the president would sign the legislation into law by yearend.

Wells Fargo is buying CMBS that it believes to be well priced, Bloomberg News reported today.

Macquarie Group is arranging to refinance an issue backed by commercial mortgages, the Australian investment firm said Monday.

The homeownership rate appears to have stabilized at 67.4% after falling for three consecutive quarters and the number of vacant homes for sale has dropped by 14% since the start of this year, according to a government report.

As part of its ongoing review of the CMBS portfolio, Fitch Ratings has placed 238 bonds from 33 different transactions, totaling $9 billion, on ratings watch negative. The status should be resolved over the next 90 days as transactions are evaluated from 2006-2008.

New-home sales jumped 13.2% in June from the previous month and homebuilders expect to see a slow improvement in sales during the rest of this year.