ABS

Doug McGregor was appointed chairman and co-CEO of RBC Capital Markets, corporate and investment banking arm of Royal Bank of Canada, while Mark Standish has been appointed president and co-CEO of the firm.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox called Tuesday for regulation of certain credit derivative products, saying the market was overrun by fraud that contributed to the housing crisis.

.A consortium of trade associations sent a letter to Congress today, urging its members to drop the proposal to include a bankruptcy “cram down” or the ability to allow judges to reduce the balance owed on a mortgage and to rewrite the terms of mortgages.

Katten Muchin Rosenman formed a new multidisciplinary task force to advise clients on the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s proposed Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported its home price index fell by 0.6% in July.

First Marblehead Corp. has made a series of management structure changes that it announced yesterday.

Barclays just announced that Lehman has started to re-open for business under its ownership. According to the release, more than 10,000 Lehman Brothers employees have been offered jobs in the new firm.

Some research from Wall Street has already started to come out on Treasury's plan The Troubled Asset Relief Act of 2008, which has been proposed to buy up troubled/illiquid assets at financial firms.

GFI Group has added five new hires in emerging markets credit default swaps in New York.

Fannie Mae today announced that effective immediately it is realigning its organizational structure.

KfW executives Detlef Leinberger and Peter Fleischer have been suspended on full salary following the German state bank's transfer of €350 million ($511 million) last week in a failed swap deal with Lehman Brothers.

Last Friday, Canada's Supreme Court dismissed last-ditch attempt to restructure country's $32 billion ABCP market.

It has become apparent that CMBS servicers and trustees need to clarify the issuer's ability to use the liquidity facility in examining swap counterparty failures, Barclays Capital said in a report released today.

Manager Activity: AutosFull Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will increase their purchases of MBS to “carry out their mission to support the mortgage market."

The Lehman Group Holding Co.'s Chapter 11 filing was followed by its London-based European holding subsidiary being placed in administration. Pricewaterhouse Coopers was appointed administrator to manage the wind-up.

In the emerging market space, Bank of America's purchase of Merrill Lynch resonates far and wide. While the commercial bank has been a non-entity in the business since 2003, Merrill has been an active player at least through last year.

At Information Management Network's first Cross Atlantic ABCP Summit held earlier this month, market panelists remained optimistic that, once the dust settles, investors will come back to the European ABCP market in greater numbers.

Sept. 15 was a day of reckoning for Wall Street as the market said goodbye to two U.S. financial institutions, 158-year old Lehman Brothers, whose parts will be wrapped into Barclays Capital, and 94-year old Merrill Lynch, which will now exist under the Bank of America umbrella.

The Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) gathered in New York last week amidst a firestorm of financial distress and a radical shift on Wall Street.