ABS

Yesterday the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Full Disclosure Act has been introduced by Reps. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., according to published reports.

The Luxembourg subsidiary of Icelandic bank Kaupthing will shed certain assets before being taken over by a Libyan consortium, according to market reports.

Standard & Poor's has assigned an 'A-1' credit rating to the new ABCP program called Churchill Loan Asset Securitization Program that was set up by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Bank of America funded $1.47 billion in reverse mortgages in the fourth quarter, ranking first nationwide, according to preliminary survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Zacks Equity Research predicts that when Freddie Mac releases full-year results shortly the GSE will have lost $39.50 a share.

Cohen & Co. hired John McWilliams as managing director and head of asset and specialty finance with Cohen & Co. Securities, the firm's institutional broker-dealer focused on debt securities.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke said current accounting and capital policies for financial institutions are excessively "pro-cyclical" and need to be reformed.

NewOak Capital appointed Edward Napoli as managing director of business development to help market the firm’s advisory, asset-management and capital markets services and to be assistant general counsel.

Standard & Poor's will be supplementing its process for gathering information about the systems, personnel, and other resources available to managers of S&P-rated CLO deals.

Reeling from charges related to its mortgage holdings, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle reported deep losses late Monday and became the first bank in the system to exhaust its cushion of retained earnings.

ProLogis European Properties (PEPR), Europe’s largest owner of modern warehouse distribution facilities, will repay CMBS debt of €335.9 million ($433.10) on April 5, three months earlier than contractually required.

Savills, a global real estate provider, stated that of the top 12 lenders for the U.K. property market this year, eight are German banks and only two are U.K. lenders.

F&C appointed Michael Heemelaar as head of global credit. Heemelaar joins from Aegon Asset Management where he was head of investment grade credit. At F&C, the new hire will be based in Amsterdam and will be reporting to Patrick Hendrikx, head of credit.

KBW, which hired two seasoned mortgage bond traders on Tuesday, wants to add more sales professionals as it expands its presence in fixed income, senior managers at the firm said.

Manhattan Bancorp, the holding firm of Bank of Manhattan, agreed to invest in a new capital markets business with Bodi Advisors.

TitleVest, a Manhattan-based provider of title insurance and related real estate services, hired Michael Birajiclian as managing director of business development.

Stifel Financial Corp. said today that it plans to buy back all auction rate securities (ARS) held by its 1,200 retail investors, who purchased the securities before the ARS market collapsed in February last year.

In Fitch Ratings' latest quarterly report on RMBS performance in Mexico, the agency said that there was an appreciable rise in delinquencies during the fourth quarter.

AmeriCredit Corp. amended and extended its master warehouse credit facility.

While refinancings and prepayments are likely to pick up as a result of President Obama's housing plan, there is much uncertainty about by how much and whether it will reach previous refinance period levels.