ABS

Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service, and Standard & Poor’s each entered into an identical cooperation agreement today with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo with the intent of restoring confidence and credibility to the mortgage markets.

Standard Chartered Bank, headquartered in London and Singapore, launched a new branch in Paris last Thursday.

Fixed mortgage rates were virtually unchanged while ARM rates fell, according to Freddie Mac's latest Mortgage Rate Survey.

Moody’s Investors Services has placed MBIA Insurance Corp.’s 'Aaa' insurance financial strength ratings on review for possible downgrade.

The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a hearing next Tuesday to examine underwriting practices at some of the top investment banks, according to Reuters.

A subsidiary of MetLife will buy the unit of residential mortgage business of First Horizon National Corp., a deal which includes more than 230 retail and wholesale offices nationwide.

Fremont General Corp. today completed the sale to Litton Loan Servicing of the remaining mortgage servicing rights on its $12.2 billion serviced loan portfolio.

Bulltick Capital Markets appointed Alberto Bernal-León as head of fixed income research.

Residental Capital, the mortgage lending unit of GMAC, said today that it needs as much as $1.4 billion in cash by the end of June in order to meet liquidity demands, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Centerline Holding Co., the parent company of Centerline Capital Group announced that J. Larry Duggins, executive managing director inenterline’s commercial real estate group, is retiring from Centerline and the commercial real estate industry by June 30. Duggins plans to attend divinity school at Southern Methodist University and devote his time to helping launch non-profit youth-oriented foundations. Duggins founded RemiCAP, the predecessor to ARCap.

Activity may be down sharply in CDOs, but there could be early signs of life returning to the CLO market, which in turn may signal a pickup in demand for leveraged loans in coming months, according to a market participant who is involved with trust services for the securitization market.

Italy might be closer than ever to issuing a covered bond, said panelists at the covered bond panel the ongoing Global ABS conference being held in Cannes.

Chief Executive Kerry Killinger will step down as chairman of Washington Mutual.

Gatten Sadowski hired Christopher Mellia as a senior analyst for ABS structured products.

Citigroup's Bill Beckman will step down as the firm's top mortgage executive in order to spend more time with his family, according to published reports. Before becoming president of CitiMortgage in July 2005, Beckman became president of Citigroup’s Student Loan Corp. in 1997 and served as chief executive officer of the unit from 1998 until 2001. He also headed Citigroup’s specialty lending group before becoming president of real estate servicing and technology in April 2003.

Ken Thompson, Wachovia’s chief executive officer, is retiring at the request of the board of directors.

The Bank of New York Mellon appointed Scott Posner chief executive officer of its global corporate trust business.

There's some uncertainty in the application of the Shariah law in structuring securitization deals, which could hinder the market's growth. There was some heated discussion about this subject at Information Management Network's and European Securitization Forum's Global ABS conference in Cannes being held this week.

The mood at Information Management Network 's (IMN) and European Securitization Forum's (ESF) Global ABS has been surprisingly optimistic despite the fact that primary issuance so far this year has been off by roughly 50%. The gathering is being held in Cannes this week.

The exit of CDO chiefs from the major investment banks continue. ASR confirmed that Sebastiano Riva, the co-head of Lehman Brother's CLO group, has left the firm.