ABS

As the market looks for alternative investment opportunities and new ways to hedge risk, global index operator Markit has taken note.

As part of an ambitious plan to delay debt maturities and stay in business for another couple of years, Residential Capital (ResCap), the troubled real estate unit of GMAC, has offered to redeem $14 billion in bonds for as little as 77 cents on the dollar. The offer, announced May 2, expires June 3.

GMAC has had to put up with a lot of headaches lately, thanks to its residential real estate finance unit, Residential Capital.

The ABS market was in better spirits last week, thanks to BlackRock's announcement that it will purchase $15 billion of subprime mortgage debt from UBS.

UBS appointed heads to its new global capital markets group, an effort by the bank to combine the primary and derivative businesses of its equity capital markets and debt capital markets groups, according to published reports.

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

Mark Adelson, formerly head of ABS research at Nomura Securities International, has been appointed as managing director, chief credit officer at Standard & Poor's.

In announcing a fifth consecutive quarterly loss Wednesday, Irwin Financial Corp. in Columbus, Ind., said it would consider exiting its troublesome home equity business.

Brian Clarkson, president and chief operating officer of Moody's Investors Service, has decided to retire at the end of July, according to a memo from the rating agency. He will be stepping down in order to make way for new management to lead the company through its current changes in response to market criticism. “Challenging credit market conditions, combined with Moody's role and function in those markets, have created scrutiny and criticism from numerous external sources about various aspects of our business,” the memo said. Brian has also led the global structured finance, project finance, managed funds and public finance ratings businesses, as well as holding sales and marketing related positions in Moody's credit research and analysis products.

DBRS today announced that it will soon be launching a new series of monthly market reports.

Markit announced last Friday the addition of the ABX.HE.PENAAA sub-indices to the ABX.HE suite, which is expected to start trading on May 14.

UBS AG said it plans to cut about 5,500 jobs or 7% of its workforce, as it tries to grapple with $19 billion in losses related to the U.S. real estate and structured credit markets.

Swiss banking giant UBS AG is expected to announce today plans to exit the municipal bond business and put its muni group up for sale as it seeks to recover from losses the bank has said could total $12 billion, sources said yesterday.

The First Marblehead Corp. announced today that it is reducing operating expenses related to its student loan business and streamlining its operations. The company said it expects to lower its operating expenses by approximately $200 million pre tax on an annualized basis and has eliminated approximately 500 jobs on all levels of the corporate ladder.

In a report released today, Fitch Ratings said that the wholesale vehicle market is exhibiting weakness because of factors such as a weak economy and a soft job market.

Residential Capital (ResCap), a division of GMAC Financial Services, is set to exchange or redeem $14 billion of its existing debt.

GMAC and Residential Capital (ResCap) took ratings cuts today that brought their ratings deeper into junk territory, as Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings both took actions against the specialty finance entities.

Triad Guaranty announced that it has entered into an agreement with Lightyear Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, to fund the creation of a new monoline.

Tougher financing conditions, coupled with doubts over the return of looser credit, are drawing the leading Brazilian banks back to structured finance.

In a hurried effort to shine light on the credit derivatives market - viewed as potentially the next domino to fall in the credit-market crisis - a new project by accounting standard setters could require firms to disclose more details about their exposure to the over-the-counter instruments currently on their books.