Securitization

RBS Securities, the investment banking and brokerage unit of Royal Bank of Scotland, is looking to add trading and sales professionals and strategists specializing in Latin American markets, according to senior fixed-income officials.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have again delayed implementation of new mortgage and appraisal delivery requirements in the Uniform Mortgage Data Program (UMDP), according to lender updates released Thursday.

The New York Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that MBIA Insurance Corp. did not have any way to discover if GMAC Mortgage intentionally misrepresented the true nature of MBS that MBIA insured.

The volume of new CLOs may triple the level reached in 2010, according to a Wells Fargo analyst.

Faced with the prospect of refinancing nearly $1.4 trillion of U.S. commercial real estate debt in the next four years, real estate investors remain skeptical, despite the halting recovery of capital markets in recent months, whether CMBS can restart with sufficient volume to finance the recovery of the commercial property markets.

The Treasury Department will gather more detailed information from residential servicers on their proprietary loan modifications.

Credit-Based Asset Servicing and Securitization (C-BASS) founders Bruce Williams and Saul Sanders have formed a new company with the working title of 'Shellpoint' to purchase and securitize jumbo residential lenders, industry sources confirmed to National Mortgage News.

Home prices have fallen nearly 4% from October 2009 to October 2010, according to CoreLogic's housing price index, which includes sales of foreclosed properties. Since July, the HPI has declined for three consecutive months.

Mortgage rates jumped for the fifth straight week as Treasurys have backed up sharply following President Obama's proposal last week to lower tax rates, as well as in response to stronger-than- expected economic news recently.

On a recent tour of Jacksonville, Fla., Paul Miller, managing director of FBR Capital Markets, found plenty of houses selling for $10,000 to $25,000, with most purchase prices below $100,000. But jumbo mortgages were few and far between.

New capital requirements under the Basel III framework would have cost banks roughly $770 billion had they been fully implemented at the end of last year, according to a 32-page study released Thursday by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

An endgame to the foreclosure crisis is emerging and it centers on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Ginnie Mae has repurchased $4.5 billion of delinquent loans out of securitized pools this year in an effort to reduce losses on servicing portfolios it inherited from LendAmerica and other defaulted issuers.

Standard & Poor's placed 1,196 tranches in 129 re-REMIC transactions on watch for possible downgrade.

Bank of America Corp. has begun potential settlement discussions with large institutional investors who bought MBS that later underperformed, causing losses at these entities, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Moody's Investors Service analysts said they don't believe Countrywide, now part of Bank of America Corp., routinely failed to transfer mortgage notes to trusts when the lender securitized loans.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, who will chair the House Financial Services oversight subcommittee next year, is demanding answers about how Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's participation in a loan modification program would benefit taxpayers.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena should be pricing its sale-and-leaseback CMBS deal next week, according to a Reuters report.

Ginnie Mae issuers securitized $34.4 billion of government guaranteed residential mortgages in November, down 3% from the prior month.

The decline in foreign investor holdings of agency MBS continued in October, contributing to an overall year-to-date decline through that time of $57 billion, according to a Credit Suisse strategist.