ABS

NovaStar Financial, Kansas City, Mo., has acquired a majority interest in PipeFire, a residential appraisal management firm headquartered in Indianapolis.

Wachovia Securities and Wachovia Capital Markets would buy back or provide liquidity for up to $9 billion of auction rate securities and would pay $50 million in fines to Missouri and other states that investigated the firm’s ARS sales practices, under a preliminary settlement reached with federal and state regulators.

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

In May, the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration proposed new rules that restrict the pricing and collection of credit card accounts. More recently, the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) that would rein in common credit card practices.

Given the challenging structured finance market conditions and an uncertain economic outlook, mortgage servicing is in hot demand, especially among investors looking for loss mitigation in distressed mortgage assets.

With the monoline industry continuing to struggle for survival, albeit with a weak pulse, and the ABS CDO sector almost flatlining, CDO hedge agreements with the monoline industry have been a cause for concern within the structured finance market.

Last week proved to be another period of slow issuance for the primary market, and trading in the secondary was not that much more active.

As summer comes to a close and all of Europe has seemingly taken a holiday from the toughest months for the securitization market, it's likely that when players return they'll find that the European market is no closer to recovery.

Sorin Capital Management announced that Matt Chasin officially joined the firm on Aug. 11 as chief operating officer, partner and member of the investment committee.

Summer vacations and ongoing worrisome conditions kept MBS volume below normal through the first half of the week with better selling overall following the sector's strong rally on the previous Friday.

Bucking the slowdown in issuance of deals backed by real estate receivables, Mexico's BBVA Bancomer closed the country's largest-ever RMBS on Aug. 8.

The Japanese government is adapting its banking regulations to accommodate the rules of Shariah-compliant Islamic finance.

Bank of America and Scotia Capital are arranging a $2.9 billion credit facility that has a securitization component to it for Ashland.

The persistence of risk aversion is heightening the focus of cross-border emerging market players on financial future flows.

Analysts have adopted a bearish stance on German cash mezzanine CLOs, saying they expect the deteriorating German economic landscape and shifting rating methodology to further pressure performance in this asset class.

A Wachovia Corp. unit that sold insurance to protect against defaults on mortgage-backed securities is being liquidated in Bermuda and has asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to fend off its creditors.

Standard & Poor’s Thursday affirmed its double-A ratings on bond insurers MBIA Insurance Corp. and Ambac Assurance Corp. and removed their ratings from CreditWatch negative.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley yesterday became the latest firms to reach auction-rate securities settlements with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and other states, agreeing yesterday to buy back at par a total of $7.5 billion of the illiquid securities from retail investors and pay fines of $60 million.

Fitch Ratings said on Thursday that certain classes of notes issued across 43 CDOs backed all or in part by trust preferred securities issued by banks are on Rating Watch Negative.

The PMI Group entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Australian mortgage insurance subsidiary and related Australian holding company to QBE Insurance Group, the country's biggest international general insurance and reinsurance group.