Auto ABS

GM Financial is front-loading the $1.2 billion deal with early maturities, according to presale reports; Hyundai Capital is also readying a $710 million transaction.

Chrysler vehicles dominate Santander's latest pool, reflecting increased originations that CEO Scott Powell believes will maintain the lender's captive-finance status.

Both lenders are boosting originations to borrowers with near-prime loans, though the impact on the overall credit quality of the collateral for their deals is slight.

More than 45% of collateral for the $254.4 million CPSART 2019-A are either "preferred," "super alpha” or “alpha plus”; that's up from 42.4% of collateral for the prior deal.

That's unprecedented; previous series from Ford Motor Credit's master trust financing dealer inventories limited non-amortizing schedules to three to seven years.

It’s a trend that bears watching, particularly for holders of the riskiest securities issued in subprime auto securitizations, according to S&P Global Ratings.

The rating agency is now considering lowering its BBB rating on the class B notes. The rating agency also downgraded the class C notes issued in the deal, for a second time, to CC from CCC+.

Flagship, Santander Consumer USA and AmeriCredit are printing $2.3 billion in new notes backed by subprime auto-loan originations.

The deal comes a year after the captive finance company began excluding low-FICO loans from its primary auto loan ABS platform.

Sales of older vehicles are on the rise and prices are headed back up, so there's more collateral available and it is also performing better.

Turbo Finance 8 is a £375.5M static transaction that includes both hire purchase loan contracts and personal contract purchase, lease-like arrangements.

The credit quality of loans backing the Cailfornia-based lender's $183 million securitization is better than that of its inaugural deal, which was only rated 'A' by Kroll.

The fifth SDART deal of the year benefits from the same improvement in credit quality as other recent transactions from the platform.

Consumer Portfolio Services' fourth auto-loan securitization of the year has a 3.97% share of loans previously assigned to CPS asset-backed portfolios, compared to an 11.97% share in its last transaction.

DriveTime is making less-risky loans under a $750 million contract purchase agreement with Ally Financial; it appears that the sponsor is also funding some of this lending through its own securitization platform.

Auto loan securitization has been in overdrive this year, even if the global tussle over import tariffs is injecting a note of caution.

Moody’s expects losses on Drive Auto Receivables Trust 2018-4 to reach 25% of the original balance over the life of the deal, down from 26% for its prior deal.

Investor appetite for deeply subordinated debt is increasing even as the industry starts to consolidate; problems at Honor Finance demonstrate the limits of relying on overcollateralization to offset losses.

About 8.5% of loans backing the $256.2 million transaction were reassigned from a 2015 deal; this boosted the weighted average seasoning to seven months from one month for ACA's prior deal.

S&P says extended term loans and "liberal" collection policies are pushing losses and amortization toward the tail end of some lenders' securitizations — making cross-comparing performance between lenders and an issuer's own outstanding vintage deals more difficult.