CDOs

Cecile Houlot joined Morgan Stanley as managing director and head of its European securitization effort within the global structured solutions group.

Even as they begin dropping credit ratings as a supervisory source, regulators signaled Tuesday they are worried about abandoning their use altogether, suggesting that potential alternatives are not much of an improvement.

Insurance holding company Ambac Financial Group reported a net loss in the second quarter, despite big gains in the value of its insured derivatives, and warned that it may be unable to pay its debts in a year.

Regulators are poised next week to start moving away from reliance on the tarnished credit rating agencies in the supervisory process, but finding other options likely will be difficult.

An affiliate of Apollo Capital Management has chosen U.S. Bank as trustee, collateral administrator and custodian for its recent ALM Funding 2010-1 deal, according to a press release issued by U.S. Bank.

Assured Guaranty late Thursday posted second-quarter earnings that were the insurer’s best since its initial public offering in 2004.

U.S. Bank Corporate Trust Services hired Joseph Giordano as senior vice president and manager of its CDO business.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may require seller/servicers of nonprime mortgages and CDO sponsors to repurchase certain loans out of mortgage trusts that are controlled by the agency.

BNY Mellon Corporate Trust has named Richard Stanley and Debra Baker to oversee its structured finance business lines, the firm announced today.

Jefferies appointed Erez Biala as a managing director and global co-head of CLO and CDO trading.

Fairholme Capital Management’s motto is “Ignore the Crowd,” and the hedge fund is sticking close to that maxim with its roughly $200 million investment in MBIA.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Thursday charged Citigroup with misleading investors about its exposure to subprime mortgage-related securities.

The Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC) said today that it will open up a public comment period on the new rules presented under the Dodd-Frank Reform Bill. This will before the official comment periods have started.

It will take five years to turn the new federal financial reform law into rules and regulation, an industry expert from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) said last week.

Five of Spain's smaller regional lenders, known as cajas, were among the seven banks to fail the European Union stress test.

Onex Credit Partners, a unit of private equity firm Onex Corp, has hired Jack Yang, a loan market veteran who helped expand Highland Capital Management’s credit strategies business, as a managing partner. This hire indicates that Onex is looking to expand its leveraged finance business.

Only seven banks failed the European stress test results for financial institutions. The question remains whether the test has done enough to ensure the strength of European financial institutions.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has arranged a $300 million CLO, surprising market participants who, after the worsening of the debt crisis overseas, weren’t expecting to see new CLOs for some time. In fact, other deals are in the works as well, sources say.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Thursday that Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million and reform its business practices to settle charges that the securities firm misled investors in marketing a synthetic CDO known as ABACUS 2007-AC1.

At the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's (SIFMA) regulatory reform summit held in New York yesterday, panelists discussed the just-passed regulatory reform bill's impact on the financial industry.