Securitization

Selene Finance, a specialty servicer/loan modification company controlled by Lewis Ranieri, has hired Larry Litton Jr. and a handful of top managers from Litton Loan Servicing, Houston, according to servicing executives that have done business with the firm.

Electronic trading platform for U.S. and European fixed-income bonds MarketAxess Holdings just added non-agency RMBS and CMBS to its e-trading platform.

Redwood Trust, the only firm to publicly issue Jumbo MBS the past two years, earned just $1 million in the third quarter, but its acquisition of nonconforming product in the secondary market jumped by 166%.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has priced a $405 million CLO for Sankaty Advisors, according to Bloomberg.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch filed a form S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue a CMBS under its Banc of America Merrill Lynch Commercial Mortgage Trust.

Two Harbors Investment Corp., a hybrid single-family residential mortgage REIT, recorded net GAAP earnings of $54.6 million during the third quarter when it completed a secondary stock offering and repositioned its portfolio to anticipate the HARP program change.

American Securitization Forum (ASF) Executive Director Tom Deutsch testified today before the capital markets subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee.

SLM Corp., better known as Sallie Mae, is in the market with a SLABS 144A deal from its SLM Private Education Loan Trust 2011-C.

Efforts to reinstate the $729,750 maximum loan limit for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration loans have garnered the support of 137 House members, including 25 Republicans.

The government controlled Freddie Mac posted a net loss of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, blaming the performance on higher credit costs and declining interest rates, which impacted the fair value of its investment in derivatives.

Ally Financial Corp. this week announced what it calls "modest" layoffs in its correspondent lending division, but declined to specify how many workers were cut.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Wednesday afternoon said the central bank might scale up its purchases of agency MBS if conditions warrant, but not right now.

The European Union FTQ bid led to a decline in mortgage rates for the week ending Nov. 3.

Citigroup has sold a $1 billion CLO for Guggenheim Investment Management, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Banque PSA Finance will issue a €500 million ($687 million)securitization of auto loan receivables.

CIT Group launched its CIT Real Estate Finance, which will originate and underwrite senior secured real estate transactions in the Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C. areas.

The U.S. homeownership rate rose unexpectedly in the third quarter from 2Q11 as rental vacancies climbed – with new evidence suggesting that tenants are tiring of rising rents.

The CMBS delinquency rate considerably rose in October, according to Trepp. October showed delinquency rates for U.S. commercial real estate (CRE) loans in CMBS increasing 21 basis points to 9.77%.

Esoteric deals are gaining traction with drug and container ABS currently in the market.