Investments

The post-crisis operational improvements at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have resulted in stronger mortgage loan performance, a Fitch Ratings report said.

The global structured credit investment firm is pricing its first European deal since opening a London branch last year. It announced the hiring of its first UK-based analyst team Tuesday.

The concentration of loans and CLOs in a small number of banks "may result in pockets of vulnerability," the report stated.

The $354.9 million Battery Park CLO Ltd. is a broadly syndicated loan portfolio that is the first “CLO 2.0” deal sponsored by Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM).

Revisions to S&P's CLO ratings methadology and Kroll's launch into rating European CLOs could challenge Moody's as the first choice for managers across the pond.

The move to an electronic platform may transform auctions to let investors offload holdings faster. The goal is to fix a part of the market that isn’t functioning as well as it could, says a Citi managing director.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the agency is closely monitoring leveraged lending risks, but suggests further regulations on banks aren’t warranted.

OBX 2019-INV2 is a private-label RMBS pool of 1,087 of agency-eligible investor-property loans.

Most regulators are careful to say a repeat of 2008 is unlikely because investors, rather than the banks they oversee, hold most of the debt.

Director Mark Calabria urged lawmakers to grant the agency chartering authority similar to that of bank regulators to boost competition in the mortgage market.

Rating criteria changes and a ruling in the Puerto Rico III case have undermined some investors' and analysts' confidence in revenue pledges.

A Moody's report highlights the regional CLO market differences becoming more crucial to global investors who analysts say want to better discern variances in each market's standards and performance.

The U.S. economy is on solid footing except for one potential trouble spot, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan: leveraged loans -- a business the bank has dominated for a decade.

The launch of a combined securitization platform for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is meant to ease the transition to a new housing finance system. But questions remain about how the mortgage sphere will adapt to the single security.

KKR is sponsoring its first middle-market CLO transaction stemming from its direct lending partnership established last year with FS Investments, according to presale reports.

Unlike Japan’s three so-called megabanks, which are under strict international capital rules because of their importance to the global financial system, many regional lenders have less stringent requirements, giving them more room to have risk assets on their balance sheets.

One of the most active investors in Europe’s CLO market may be about to test the loyalty of the managers that provide it with triple-A paper by asking for a higher spread.

Delinquencies associated with the government-sponsored enterprises high loan-to-value ratio programs that target low-to-moderate income homebuyers are slightly better than expected, at least early on, according to Fitch.

Government-sponsored enterprise executives say they want to continue to offer credit risk transfers and guarantee-fee parity after the GSEs are released from conservatorship, but they might not be able to.

A reincarnated version of collateralized debt obligations, backed by both high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, offers investors some of the best relative-value plays in fixed-income, says a Credit Suisse panelist at IMN's CLO and leveraged loan investors' conference in New York.