Prime auto ABS

The transaction's note size is to be determined, but is backed by €750M in lease-backed receivables, compared to €1.5 billion in VW's most recent German lease ABS in May.

Over three-quarters of loans in the €861.3 million transaction are loans in which borrowers are scheduled to repay almost half the principal in its final installment.

The captive-finance lenders will be the leading issuers of U.S. auto lease-backed securitizations in 2017 at the close of their latest deals launched this week.

More than 88% of contracts in the $800 million transaction have terms of less than 40 months; Fitch points to the increased the use of subvention at Toyota dealerships.

Jeff Weinstein and Patrick Lampe join from the Chicago office of Sidley Austin; Morgan Lewis partner Philip Russell is relocating from the firm’s New York office.

Volkswagen Bank's Driver 15 is its first German auto-loan securitization since March, as Europe's largest auto-finance company furthers a comeback from the 2015 VW diesel-engine scandal.

SUVs account for 41.3% of receivables backing HAROT 2018-3; that's up from 37.9% of Honda's prior deal and the first time exposure has increased since early 2017.

Credit metrics for the $799.9 million deal are better, by some measures, but rating agencies are concerned that delinquencies in the $10.2 billion managed portfolio are slightly higher, year-on-year.

The U.S. captive finance arms of Nissan North America and Daimler AG (Mercedes-Benz) have joined CarMax in sponsoring prime-loan asset-backed portfolios adding to a deal spree totaling $61.3 billion so far in 2018.

New collateral can be added to the $824.2M Ford Credit Auto Owner Trust REV 2018-2 until 2023; that's two years less than the revolving period on its prior deal, completed in January.