CDOs

From Brussels to D.C., the season of powwows is here, and ASR's editors have certainly been getting around.

Regulation was a main focus at the recently concluded Global ABS 2011 conference held in Brussels in mid June. One of the issues was Solvency II, the proposed new European regulatory regime that, according to a report by Moody's Investors Service, is probably going to increase regulatory capital requirements for both European Union and European Economic Area insurers and reinsurers when it is implemented in 2013.

Tejas Securities Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westech Capital Corp. hired Samir Shah as managing director and co-sales manager of structured products.

Moody’s Investors Service may upgrade some $237 billion of CLOs as a result of a change in its ratings methodology.

Bank policyholders suing the New York Insurance Department (NYID) and MBIA Inc. say new documents made available to the public show MBIA senior executives concealed critical information from the NYID about the size of future losses at MBIA Insurance Corp.

JPMorgan Securities has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning its 2007 sale of CDOs called Squared CDO 2007-1, according to a press release from the firm.

Like every sector in the European securitization market, CLOs are struggling with the onslaught of regulation.

Buysiders speaking at an investor roundtable panel said that understanding ABS collateral is key to structured finance recovery.

There remains value in certain European ABS sectors despite their risk profile, said panelists at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe’s (AFME) and the Information Management Network’s Global ABS 2011 conference being held in Brussels this week.

Goldman Sachs has launched a $301.5 million CLO to be managed by PineBridge Investments, according to sources.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision finalized its review of the Basel III standard for capital treatment for counterparty credit risk in bilateral trades and plans to modify the risk weighting of credit valuation adjustment (CVA), which is the risk of loss caused by changes in the credit spread of a counterparty due to changes in its credit quality.

The government is a month into selling its AIG holdings. Despite the bids for the auctions being pre-announced, the sales are causing a commotion in the RMBS secondary market, and the reaction from securitization players is not entirely positive.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposal issued May 18 to implement rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act tasks rating agencies with measures most have sought to address, but the proposal's detailed requirements could instead overwhelm smaller agencies.

Vendors anticipated hearing May 27, the Friday after ASR's deadline, whether they could bid on the contract to build and operate a repository to collect and make available data for loans backing European RMBS, a project several steps ahead of a similar effort in the U.S.

ING closed a CLO for more than $400 million, according to sources. Almost $2 billion in new CLOs have priced in May.

Babson Capital has joined a growing list of money management firms starting closed-end loan funds. In Babson’s case, the fund will invest in leverage loans and high yield bonds in both North America and Western Europe.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) will have Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro as keynote speaker at its 2011 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on June 22.

Principia Partners released the latest version of its structured finance platform called Principia SFP.

Despite assertions they got off relatively lightly in the Dodd-Frank Act, foreign banks operating in the U.S. are increasingly worried they will be targeted by some of the regulatory reform law's toughest provisions.

It’s official: Leveraged loans are back in Europe and they are here to stay.