CDOs

Standard & Poor's put 1,981 structured finance tranches in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) on creditwatch negative yesterday as a result of the revision of its counterparty criteria.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) will not exercise its authority under the Dodd-Frank Act to reclaim or recover assets transferred by a financial company into a securitization, said FDIC acting FDIC General Counsel, Michael Krimminger in a letter to the industry.

Prudential Financial, PIMCO and Nuveen Investments are launching new dual purpose funds that will focus mostly on leveraged loans but could also invest in high-yield bonds, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

This week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules that would require most ABS issuers to still file periodic reports for the life of the publicly registered ABS.

Markit has acquired QuIC Financial Technologies,a risk analytics solutions provider.

Bingham McCutchen has elected 13 lawyers to its partnership. The promotions follow a year when the law firm expanded its key practices in the global markets, including launching its Frankfurt-based financial restructuring practice. It also grew its Hong Kong office.

In the Chinese Zodiac, 2011 is the year of the rabbit. But in leveraged finance, 2011 may be the year of the CLO, with this investment vehicle bringing more deals to the leveraged loan market.

Shares of MBIA jumped by nearly one-third in the last week as traders bet that the bond insurance holding company will win or settle a series of lawsuits.

U.S. Bank National Association, which is U.S. Bancorp's lead bank, has completed the purchase of the domestic and European-based securitization trust administration businesses of Bank of America. The deal closed on Dec. 30.

Ever since private-label MBS litigation began, aggrieved investors have faced an uneasy trade-off between cost and thoroughness: They must prove their losses stem from systemic underwriting flaws, but they can ill afford the time and money required to bicker over how each loan was underwritten.

Eversheds has appointed structured finance and derivatives lawyer Kingsley Ong as partner in its Hong Kong banking and finance team.

Though the Basel II process to write new international capital standards lingered for nearly a decade, its successor has come a remarkably long way in just the past year.

Recent attacks on securitization have centered on its legal soundness.

When a prominent investment banker recently predicted another 300 banks would fail from wounds inflicted during the financial crisis, some investors in trust-preferred securities hailed his comments as good news.

Leveraged loan issuance doubled in 2010 and is expected to continue at a healthy pace in 2011, according to a report published by Bloomberg today.

Stagnant insurance laws that don’t allow for needed innovation are preventing a revival of the bond insurance industry, according to executives from the BondFactor Co. start-up.

Pramerica Investment Management is assuming management of a CLO previously overseen by Aladdin Capital Management UK, according to a Moody’s Investors Service report.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded MBIA and its two principal bond insurer subsidiaries on Wednesday, citing new methodologies for assessing RMBS.

Resource America's subsidiary Resource Europe Management sold the management contract of Resource Europe CLO I B.V., a €300 million ($392.74 million) CLO. The sale was made to an affiliate of Intermediate Capital Group (ICG).

The volume of new CLOs may triple the level reached in 2010, according to a Wells Fargo analyst.