Securitization

United Guaranty (UGI) has decided to increase its participation in the newly revised Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP), issuing new guidance to servicers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans.

Roughly 22.1% of all residential properties – 10.7 million units — encumbered by a mortgage were in a negative equity position at the end of September, a slight decline from mid-year, according to new figures compiled by CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) repeatedly defers to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without independently testing their decisions, according to a report released Tuesday by a government watchdog.

Investors are going to face a shortage of very high quality short-end paper. This is because there is much less being issued than will be maturing through the end of next year, Amherst Securities Group (ASG) said in a report released late yesterday.

Guggenheim Partners affiliate Pillar Multifamily has agreed to buy Fannie Mae-eligible loans sourced by Tremont Realty Capital under a correspondent agreement between the two companies.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a proposal Tuesday that would remove references to credit ratings from its regulations, and posted guidance to help banks evaluate investment risks.The Dodd-Frank Act requires federal agencies to review regulations that required banks to use credit ratings to asses the creditworthiness of a security or money market instrument. Under the law, regulators must modify the rules to remove the references to credit ratings, and substitute them with an alternative standard.

Santander U.K. is planning a new securitization backed by a pool of prime residential mortgages out of the bank's Fosse Master Trust structure.

Lloyds Banking Group has closed its Australian leveraged finance group, a spokesman confirmed.

The Bank of Ireland has offered to buy back up its Kildare and Brunel securitizations at between 28% and 88% of par. It stated that the move would reduce its regulatory capital by up to €300 million ($400 million).

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. has filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue under its CFCRE Commercial Mortgage Trust 2011-C2. The deal is worth $541.86 million.

Within minutes of Rep. Barney Frank's surprise announcement that he planned to retire next year, industry insiders and political analysts were focused on who would take his place as lead Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.

Fannie Mae in early November cut 160 full-time workers such as a handful of vice presidents, including one with almost 30 years of service.

Fitch Ratings expects to revise the rating outlook to negative for certain U.S. structured finance ratings. This is a result of the change in the U.S. sovereign’s rating outlook to negative from stable.

Judge Jed Rakoff from the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York today rejected Citigroup's settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the sale of a $1 billion CDO linked to subprime MBS.

Mortgage balances on consumer credit reports dropped by about $114 billion or 1.3% during the third quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's latest report on household debt and credit.

New home sales rose 1.3% in October after September sales were revised downward, according to new government figures released Monday.Meanwhile, the median sales price fell to its lowest level of the year.

The proposed changes to the Standard & Poor's counterparty criteria make them generally more lenient, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) analysts said in a report released today.

Real estate investment trust W.P. Carey & Co. continues to show appetite for self-storage facilities with another reported acquisition of units.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in early December will seek bids on a small pool of defaulted single-family loans and plans to conduct additional auctions in April and September of next year.

Government officials are likely to lessen large banks' liabilities over how they handled delinquent Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages as part of a settlement with the largest mortgage servicers, according to people briefed on the negotiations.