Securitization

When it comes to the business of mortgage servicing now may not look like the best time to jump in.

Banca Popolare Vicenza has mandated UniCredit Bank, JPMorgan, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS as joint leads for its upcoming BERICA 9 prime Italian RMBS transaction.

The Treasury Department late Friday issued its first ever scorecard on HAMP second lien modifications, noting that from April of last year to February, servicers restructured 17,000 junior liens.

Only a "small fraction" of the nation's 3,000-plus counties will be impacted when the formula that determines the conforming loan limit changes in October, according to an analysis by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

As industry participants debate rules designed to restart securitization of private-label mortgages, another corner of this market is showing signs of life: the nonguaranteed portion of loans backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA).

Manager Activity: Autos Book Runner Amount (US$ Mil) Rank Mkt.

Last week the CRE Finance Council (CREFC) described how its members are seeking some flexibility with respect to risk-retention requirements in a Wall Street Journal article.

Australia's Perpetual is in the market with an RMBS called Barton Series 2011-1. The five-tranche deal is rated by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

The Japanese earthquake and the crisis that resulted should put pressure on Hawaiian tourism.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would clarify the authority of the U.S. bankruptcy courts to run mediation programs that facilitate negotiations between struggling homeowners and servicers to prevent foreclosures.The committee passed the measure on a 10-8 party-line vote. With all eight Republicans voting against it, it is unlikely the bill, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., will ever reach the floor of the Senate.

Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. hopes to double its secondary market public finance business with the launch of a Web platform rolled out on Thursday.

As developments like the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s plan to gradually and competitively sell nonagency RMBS from the “bailout” period into an improved market suggest, it looks like we’re starting to put the recent downturn behind us in some respects.

Certain of the nation's megaservicers have agreed to sign a modified consent order with Federal regulators as part of a first step to inking a final settlement between the industry and 50 state attorneys general, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Frustrated by the lack of progress with a global settlement between the 50 state attorneys general and the top mortgage servicers, federal banking regulators are expected to move forward with their own enforcement actions against 14 servicers as early as next week.

Auto sector is heating up once again with two deals from AmeriCredit Financial Services and American Honda Finance Corp.

Investors have proven slow to return to the European securitization market. The limited appetite has been matched by a lackluster amount of securitization supply that market analysts said has created an imbalance in secondary and primary securitization pricing.

Formulating the rules to implement the Dodd-Frank Act has proven to be challenging. Regulators both missed and moved deadlines to accomplish this monumental task.

Two years ago, Shariah-compliant bonds, or sukuk, began facing the first major test of their structures. The global crisis, paired with overinvestment in the Gulf Region, conspired to trigger a number of defaults that some observers believed would prompt investors to drill deeper into deals, and possibly favor those that were true securitizations.

As 2011 MBS outlooks were being formulated, mortgage rate levels were much lower. This lead to expectations of increased paydowns from the Federal Reserve, theU.S Treasury and the GSEs as a result of the elevated prepayment speeds.

New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland don't get much attention for their middle-of-the-pack foreclosure rates. But CoreLogic said these three states have the highest levels of distressed homes that are not yet listed for sale but make up the shadow inventory.