CDOs

McDermott Will & Emery has hired structured finance attorney Perry Sayles to its New York office as a partner in its financial institutions advisory practice group.

Despite first-half CLO volume that bested 2011’s total and put issuance well beyond the midway point of even optimistic projections for this year, CLO market participants remain somewhat cautious about how many more deals the market can absorb in the second half.

Issuance of European CLOs may be stalled, but 3i Debt Management believes that once the macro-economic picture improves, these structured finance vehicles will resume their role as important players in the region's loan market. That was part of the rationale for the London-based firm's recent acquisition of seven European CLOs from U.S. money manager Invesco.

Securitization market executives may want to reconsider their summer vacation plans. Not only are significant rules stemming from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act likely to be issued soon, but an earlier proposal amending Regulation AB, which had been put on the backburner, may be finalized over the next few months.

ABCP looms large among the victims of Moody's bank downgrades on June 21. Some of these banks support ABCP conduits, which, in turn, saw their ratings drop. And in ABCP land, that single grade difference can make or break a conduit. It's because money market funds - ABCP's biggest investors - can only buy 'P-1' paper.

CLO volume this year has been a bright spot for leveraged loans, with nearly $18 billion in funds launching so far, according to Royal Bank of Scotland analysts.

Credit Suisse and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities are raising a $413.4 million collateralized loan obligation for Prudential Investment Management, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is selling assets from 11 CDOs forming part of its Maiden Lane III (ML III) portfolio. Offering circulars were released yesterday.

Structured finance investors would prefer to rely on fewer sources of pricing for tracking deals, according to 107 investors in the industry surveyed by Principia Partners.

Shenkman Capital Management is in the market with its first collateralized loan obligation since the financial crisis.

The European DataWarehouse came in for some criticism at Information Management Network’s and Association for Financial Markets in Europe’s Global ABS 2012 conference, which is being held in Brussels this week.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today moved ahead with its planned auction of $1.9 billion from its Maiden Lane III portfolio that include assets from the Altius I and Altius II CDOs.

Global ABS 2011 – Today kicks off Information Management Network’s (IMN) Global ABS 2012 in Brussels. The conference will be held until Thursday, June 14.

If enacted by U.S. regulators as currently drafted, the Simple Supervisory Formula Approach (SSFA) would require banks to give capital risk weightings to securitizations that are sharply higher than those assessed under the longstanding ratings-based approach, according to a presentation by Brian P. Lancaster, co-head of structured transactions at RBS, and John Jordan, from the bank’s financial institutions division.

Despite intense volatility buffeting the Eurozone in recent months, Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees long-term strengths in the region’s structured finance space.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York plans to sell $7 billion from its Maiden Lane III portfolio which will include assets from seven CDOs .

Issuance of collateralized loan obligations, which had been running well ahead of last year’s levels, now appears to be on hold until credit markets stabilize, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Middle market CLOs have remained relatively scarce since the financial crisis, as it is still difficult for deal sponsors to get financing to warehouse loans to small and medium-sized companies.