CDOs

There's more than one kind of CLO revival underway. Issuance of CLOs in the quasi-public 144A market has picked up dramatically since the financial crisis, thanks to the strong performance of existing vehicles. But, market observers say there has also been a pick-up in issuance of CLOs that are truly private, which have proprietary structures and only a handful of participants.

Banks are applying a well-honed strategy to mitigate regulators' recent proposal to determine capital requirements for assets that include securitizations.

Bond insurer MBIA reported experiencing losses in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Bond insurer Assured Guaranty reported a net loss per share despite mostly positive results for the fourth quarter of 2011.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has fined State Street Corp. $5 million over its role as investment manager in the Carina CDO.

The Carlyle Group said today it completed the acquisition of the management contracts of four European CLOs with total assets of €2.1 billion in from Highland Capital Management, an alternative asset management firm based in Dallas.

Bond insurer Ambac Financial Group is offering the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) $102 million to settle the agency’s $800 million claim against it.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has recommended disciplinary action be taken against two CLO professionals affiliated with Guggenheim Capital Markets.

The leveraged loan market is hoping to dodge yet another bullet from the Dodd-Frank Act.

Massachusetts’ top securities regulator has asked Bank of America to turn over documents related to two CLOs.

Bond-insurer Assured Guaranty Thursday announced it was doubling the quarterly dividend to 9 cents per share.

Bond insurer MBIA has admitted to making errors in its application to regulators seeking to split the company in two.

Coming off a strong January for new deals, and encouraged by improved economic news, sentiment in the U.S. CLO market has taken a giddy skip from guarded optimism to bullishness — a little too bullish, according to some market participants.

CIFC Corp. said Tuesday it unloaded a middle market CLO it had put on the block last year.

Optimism among market participants regarding CLO issuance in 2012 appears to have increased in the past few weeks.

While the U.S. subinvestment-grade market, especially on the bond side, has seen a steady stream of European deals recently, one group of investors likely wouldn’t mind being shown a bit more love by these issuers and their underwriters: European CLO managers.

Pillsbury has hired Anthony Schouten and Jeffrey Stern for its finance group as partners in New York.

Barclays is looking to buy up notes in ACA CLO 2005-1, a CLO managed by Apidos Capital Management, in an apparent effort to exercise the deal’s call option.

Monolines that have brought MBS lawsuits to court have used the same facts that class actions and put-back claims have made, but have used a different theory of law as a legal basis for their arguments.