Securitization

Cohen & Co. has formed a new venture with FundCore Finance Group to create a commercial real estate (CRE) conduit lender. The conduit will start originating loans in this quarter.

Prudential Financial, PIMCO and Nuveen Investments are launching new dual purpose funds that will focus mostly on leveraged loans but could also invest in high-yield bonds, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

This week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules that would require most ABS issuers to still file periodic reports for the life of the publicly registered ABS.

Ally Financial filed an S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue under its Capital Auto Receivables trust.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) released at the end of last year a list of CUSIP-level breakpoints for insurance firms to use to determine their capital requirements. The NAIC's list has a set of five breakpoints for every insurer-held bond, each with a corresponding NAIC designation.

A reduction in mortgage servicing fees by the GSEs would be a "meaningful positive" for the industry, according to analysts with KBW's Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Recovery in the housing market, and the economy at large, is dependent on what the government does — and doesn't do — to influence the recuperation, according to a panel of economic observers at a real estate conference in New York.

Mortgage firms initiated a record 3.8 million in foreclosure-related actions in 2010, including filing notices of default, scheduling auctions, and repossessing homes according to new figures released by RealtyTrac, Irvine, Calif.

The American Bankers Association (ABA) is urging banking regulators to tailor the qualified residential mortgage (QRM) standard so that the majority of loans originated by depository institutions are exempt from risk retention.

Homebuilder Lennar Corp. promoted Rick Beckwitt to president from executive vice president. Stuart Miller will remain chief executive officer of the company.

Standard & Poor's updated its methodology and assumptions for rating and monitoring U.S. auto ABS.

Despite reports to the contrary, Rep. Scott Garrett said Republicans still intend to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after a suitable transition.

The universe of bonds backed by credit card loans shrank by about a fifth last year as an era of off-balance-sheet accounting ended and the industry re-engineered its funding base.

U.S. money market funds (MMFs) and banks located in peripheral European countries continued reducing their holdings of ABCP over 4Q10, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Mortgage rates declined for the second straight week and are at their lowest level in five weeks.

For decades, mortgage servicers handling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans have been paid a set minimum rate for every dollar of performing loans they tend.

Housing and mortgage trade groups are concerned that federal regulators will propose a narrow exemption to MBS risk retention rules that would impose high capital requirements on plain vanilla mortgages, making them unnecessarily expensive for creditworthy borrowers.

Moody's Investors Service said in a report that the Bank of America settlement with the GSEs does not address the uncertainty around claims by monoline insurers and private label investors.

Mortgage application activity increased 2.2% in the week ending Jan. 7 as refinancing activity picked up.

Freddie Mac announced a $1 billion offering of structured passthrough certificates (K Certificates), multifamily MBS, which are expected to price the week of Jan.17 and settle on Feb 10.