CDOs

Independent broker-dealer Braver Stern Securities hired Peter Howard as a managing director and head trader of CDOs, CLOs and esoteric ABS.

Principia Partners recently surveyed over 500 investors, issuers, regulators and other structured finance professionals on the subject of investor due diligence.

Katten Muchin Rosenman hired five structured finance lawyers from Dewey & LeBoeuf, including five structured finance partners in New York and a financial products tax partner in Washington, D.C.

Landon Parsons joined Moelis & Co. as senior advisor in the firm’s risk advisory group.

Ambac Financial Group, parent of the junk-rated bond insurer Ambac Assurance Corp., said in a regulatory filing Monday morning that it may be forced to file for bankruptcy by yearend because it has been unable to raise fresh capital.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposal of Oct. 13 to require issuers to review the underlying assets in their ABS should create a much more uniform set of review standards - to the benefit of investors. However, it could significantly alter, perhaps to the ABS market's detriment, how the reviews are performed.

The so-called foreclosure scandal has grabbed headlines over the past month. ASR's November issue looks beyond the mainstream coverage to its effect on bondholders.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) recently finalized its Safe Harbor that protects the assets that are transferred to bank-sponsored securitization vehicles from a financial institution's FDIC receivership.

There are three regulations that are causing a hullabaloo among CLO market participants.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is establishing a new effective date of May 16, 2011 for reporting ABS to the trade reporting and compliance engine (TRACE).

Standard & Poor’s predicts that the volume of outstanding structured finance securities in the U.S. as a percentage of GDP will fall to the 23%-25% range by the end of 2011, the weighting it had in 2003-2004.

JPMorgan has revised an Apollo Management-managed CLO it is marketing, according to sources.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair became the first regulator to publicly shoulder some of the blame for foreclosure problems at several servicers, saying the agencies should have seen it coming.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit offered up a scathing review Monday of Basel III, saying the new rules do nothing to reduce pro-cyclicality or to level the playing field among different countries and differently regulated financial institutions.

The public finance market no longer has a triple-A rated bond insurer. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Assured Guaranty’s two insurer platforms on Monday to 'AA-plus' with a stable outlook from 'AAA' with a negative outlook.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) expressed its support for the portion of the Dodd-Frank Act that addressed conflicts of interest in securitization in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today.

Regulators took their first step this week toward drafting new rules that would require lenders to retain some risk before selling loans into the secondary market.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued a report yesterday on the potential effect of credit risk retention requirements on securitization.

Moody’s Investors Service said the proposed rehabilitation plan to deal with Ambac Assurance Corp.’s segregated account of high-risk insured assets is a credit positive and, if confirmed by the courts, will put the Wisconsin-domiciled bond insurer “one step closer to an orderly run-off.”

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published recommendations for market interventions and securitization in emerging markets after meeting at Istanbul last week.