CDOs

One-by-one various market players have come forward in recent weeks with predictions of slowing - in some cases negative - home price appreciation (HPA) in coming quarters. While actual HPA information varies depending on the source, and typically lags several months behind, both anecdotal and futures market information back up a prediction of slowing ahead. For example, the one-year futures-implied HPA on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Composite Index has fallen in recent weeks to -4% HPA from 0%.

It took nearly seven years for the banking industry to hash out proposed revisions to the Basel Capital Accord and get the Federal Reserve to approve them. Now, while the industry awaits approval from the three other federal banking regulators, four large U.S. banks have raised objections as to how the revised accord should be implemented.

Cash flow models may not be keeping up with the rapidly growing and transforming high-grade ABS CDO sector, according to a report released last week by Deutsche Bank analysts. The U.S. high-grade ABS CDO sector has grown exponentially in recent years - to roughly $40 billion year-to-date from about $42 billion in all of 2005, and some $5 billion two years earlier - primarily due to demand on behalf of some investors for "safer," higher-rated portfolio assets. The deals now represent two-thirds of the entire structured finance CDO market, Deutsche said.

Investor demand might not have forced issuers to bring a lot of deals to the ABS market last week, as new pricings totaled just $11 billion. Traders and other market professionals, however, said the deals' warm reception kept spreads reigned in tightly across all sectors.

Recent leveraged loan spread widening could be a boon to new-issue CLO investors - as long as the widening is in fact due to market technicals. Bear Stearns analysts said as much last week, pointing out that widening in leveraged loan spreads could be owed mainly to supply and demand mismatches. On the fringes, some of the pull-back among certain investors could be due to loosened loan covenants, analysts said. But credit fundamentals within the U.S. loan market are widely anticipated to remain strong for several years - opening the door for equity investors to take ample opportunity of the record high return-on-equity in the space.

The release of standard documentation for trading CDO credit default swaps in early June was a major step toward transforming what has historically been a long-only market - and in the weeks following, the sector seems to be chugging along.

The Senate Banking Committee last Wednesday passed a version of legislation that aims to give the Securities and Exchange Commission explicit authority to regulate credit rating agencies. The Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006, aims to increase competitiveness in the industry, address conflicts of interest, and if necessary, counter abusive practices.

As pricing finally begins to rise on institutional loans, CLO managers are frenetically scrambling to issue larger funds in order to invest in and take advantage of these juicier spreads. Jumping on board with one such new fund is The Carlyle Group, which announced the close of its eighth US high yield fund, Carlyle High Yield Partners VIII (CHYP VIII), last Wednesday. The new $525 million fund, which utilizes a traditional CLO structure, will invest a minimum of 95% of its assets in bank loans with a maximum of 5% in high yield bonds. Carlyle's leveraged finance group now manages $5.6 billion in assets.

New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM) announced last week that it closed a $618 million collateralized loan obligation, NYLIM Flatiron CLO 2006. The new CLO, underwritten by Citigroup, and managed by NYLIM's fixed income investors group, marks the sixth collateralized debt obligation for NYLIM.

JPMorgan Securities is preparing to bring to the market this month the second CDO backed by Attentus Management Group. The $512 million Attentus CDO II will be backed by a mix of trust preferred securities, secured loans and subordinated debt issued by REITs (a little more then 50%), real estate operating companies (about 30%) as well as home builders. The portfolio also has about an 11% bucket for CMBS.

Fitch Ratings announced on Aug. 2 the launch of Stability Scores for synthetic CDOs. The scores indicate the propensity of a tranche to retain its original rating over a period of one year from closing, thus providing a better understanding of the prospective stability of the ratings.

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues JP Morgan 6,351.4 1 14.9 14 Wachovia Corp 6,106.4 2 14.3 11 Citigroup 6,027.5 3 14.1 12 Deutsche Bank AG 5,729.1 4 13.4 10 Barclays Capital 3,626.9 5 8.5 6 HSBC Holdings PLC 2,389.3 6 5.6 3 Royal Bank of Scotland Group 2,169.3 7 5.1 5 Banc of America Securities LLC 1,925.9 8 4.5 3 Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 1,847.5 9 4.3 4 Goldman Sachs & Co 1,701.7 10 4.0 3 Industry Total 42,728.3 - 100.0 50 Source: Thomson Financial

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 20,959.6 1 13.4 28 Citigroup 19,408.6 2 12.4 33 Deutsche Bank AG 16,561.1 3 10.6 22 Banc of America Securities LLC 11,303.1 4 7.2 26 Credit Suisse 10,506.7 5 6.7 19 Bear Stearns & Co Inc 10,154.2 6 6.5 21 UBS 9,676.6 7 6.2 40 Wachovia Corp 9,013.1 8 5.7 20 Royal Bank of Scotland Group 6,499.7 9 4.1 8 Morgan Stanley 6,308.8 10 4.0 29 Industry Total 156,851.0 - 100.0 308 Source: Thomson Financial

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues Banc of America Securities LLC 10,235.0 1 25.8 13 Citigroup 8,982.0 2 22.6 13 JP Morgan 7,824.7 3 19.7 18 Deutsche Bank AG 2,924.9 4 7.4 8 Morgan Stanley 2,289.1 5 5.8 4 Barclays Capital 2,260.1 6 5.7 6 Credit Suisse 1,735.1 7 4.4 8 ABN AMRO 1,000.0 8 2.5 5 HSBC Holdings PLC 1,000.0 8 2.5 1 Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 500.0 10 1.3 2 Industry Total 39,700.8 - 100.0 58 Source: Thomson Financial

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues Deutsche Bank AG 1,250.0 1 19.7 2 ABN AMRO 1,250.0 1 19.7 2 Lehman Brothers 1,250.0 1 19.7 2 Royal Bank of Scotland Group 1,000.0 4 15.8 2 Banc of America Securities LLC 1,000.0 4 15.8 2 Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 300.0 6 4.7 1 Citigroup 300.0 6 4.7 1 Industry Total 6,350.0 - 100.0 5 Source: Thomson Financial

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues Lehman Brothers 35,663.7 1 10.7 81 Royal Bank of Scotland Group 30,204.5 2 9.1 75 Countrywide Securities Corp 30,132.0 3 9.1 49 Morgan Stanley 27,249.1 4 8.2 28 Credit Suisse 26,016.6 5 7.8 70 Deutsche Bank AG 22,889.2 6 6.9 52 Bear Stearns & Co Inc 20,093.7 7 6.0 65 Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 19,954.9 8 6.0 33 Goldman Sachs & Co 19,000.7 9 5.7 40 JP Morgan 16,194.9 10 4.9 38 Industry Total 332,872.9 - 100.0 655 Source: Thomson Financial

Full Credit to Book (Equal if Joint) U.S. Public ABS Market/144A Market Managers Proceeds (mils) Rank Mkt. Share # of Issues Citigroup 7,390.8 1 19.3 10 Deutsche Bank AG 6,320.7 2 16.5 9 Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 3,420.1 3 8.9 3 Credit Suisse 3,306.5 4 8.6 6 Goldman Sachs & Co 2,941.3 5 7.7 4 Lehman Brothers 2,834.1 6 7.4 2 Morgan Stanley 2,568.2 7 6.7 3 Banc of America Securities LLC 2,550.5 8 6.6 4 RBC Capital Markets 2,179.0 9 5.7 4 Wachovia Corp 1,610.0 10 4.2 1 Industry Total 38,396.5 - 100.0 30 Source: Thomson Financial

auto ABS 10% credit card ABS 8% enterprise finance 0% equipment ABS 2% real estate ABS 71% structured settlements 0% student loan ABS 8% trade receivables 1%

Whether large or small, banks have never had a lot of financial incentive to issue student loan ABS paper, but some market players say the shifting tides of the student loan business might change that.

As second quarter earnings data from mortgage lenders began to trickle into the market last week - giving some insight for the secondary market as to how the lenders, and their loans, are faring amid a slowing housing market - results and outlooks so far seem to be a bit of a mixed bag. Perhaps because, as IndyMac Bancorp's Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Perry put it last week, "we are laying off the bulk of that credit risk into the secondary market."