CDOs

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.

Regulatory reform survived its last significant hurdle Thursday with the Senate moving to block further changes and hold a final vote on the bill.

With U.S. financial reform nearly through, eyes are turning to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which is hammering out a set of regulatory standards intended to lay the foundation for a global overhaul.

With the votes lined up, the Senate Tuesday was poised to set in motion the final countdown to a vote on financial regulatory reform.

Like a shark swimming near a crowded beach, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is causing a lot of anxiety for bank loan market participants, especially those who have anything to do with CLOs.

Fitch Solutions' CDS liquidity scores will now offer CDS liquidity measures at the contract level in addition to the existing entity level scores launched last year.

After experiencing a barrage of criticism for their tardy downgrades, the top three ratings agencies are seeking to regain credibility by tailoring their research efforts to better meet the needs of investors.

Despite the devastation in the wake of the global financial crisis, there are certain areas of the securitization market that present opportunities for investors.

Goldman Sachs underwrote $14.5 billion in CDOs in 2006 and took short positions against only 1% of the total, according to prepared testimony to be delivered today before the financial crisis inquiry commission.

Standard & Poor's has announced the categories of debt instruments which ratings will have a structured finance identifier.

The big three credit rating agencies have long made the disclaimer that investors should not use ratings as a substitute for independent judgment. Now regulators want banks to prove they aren't doing that.