Securitization

Cole Real Estate Investments hired Jeffrey Holland as head of capital markets and executive vice president.

The aggregate value of commercial real estate (CRE) loans priced by DebtX that back CMBS rose to 80.9% as of Oct. 29 from 80.5% as of Sept. 30. Loan values were 76.9% at October 30, 2009.

With foreclosures at an elevated level since the mortgage crisis broke out, the Mortgage Electronic Registry System (MERS) has come under scrutiny.

Even with much of the developed world still struggling, Brazil's economy exudes health. But robust growth over the medium to long term is very much conditioned on advances in infrastructure, where enduring bottlenecks are bound to tighten unless investment grows and private-sector investors play a larger role.

Last month Asset Securitization Report met with dealmakers to talk about the future of covered bonds in the U.S.

Next year is looking to be another interesting one for the MBS market and a contributor to this is the possibility of the implementation of a fails penalty.

There is a reasonable chance that the incoming Congress will finally attempt to tackle the contentious issue of GSE reform. However, radical changes to the GSEs (with some discussion of eliminating them entirely) have the potential to seriously disrupt the mortgage and housing markets. Despite their depleted financial condition, they remain entrenched in housing finance, as more than two-thirds of MBS are being issued through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The commercial real estate (CRE) market, and CMBS as a component of this sector, has not been immune from the problems brought on by the financial crisis.

The European securitization market saw the return of regular new issuance with approximately €75 billion ($98.2 billion) distributed to end investors year-to-date. However, the uptick in primary volumes is still dwarfed by the retained securitizations that remain on issuers balance sheets.

ABS market players have certainly learned their lesson from the problems that led to the financial crisis.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put on hold one change that could have shuttered the ABS market starting in early January. But a long line of proposals marching into 2011 will keep ABS compliance departments busy and, in some cases, may fundamentally alter the market.

Many segments of U.S. structured finance were forced to play defense to varying degrees during the last few years in light of this past economic recession. Much of 2010 was viewed as a year of 'lessons learned'. But now with the economic recovery slowly underway, we may finally begin to see U.S. structured finance turn the corner towards stability in 2011. Fitch's Rating Outlook for U.S. structured finance is Stable.

The landscape for non-agency RMBS has dramatically changed and, given the variables that banks must contemplate, it is unlikely that 2011 will see the clarity needed to drive origination volumes in the non-agency space.

Standard Chartered Bank has completed its sixth CLO under its START CLO program called START VI CLO, according to a release from the firm.

For the first time since significant mortgage servicing problems came to light, federal regulators called on Congress Wednesday to establish national standards for the foreclosure process.

The delinquency rate in November jumped 35 basis points overall, which is the largest increase since May 2010, TreppWire reported.

Primus Guaranty completed the sale of its third-party asset management subsidiary CypressTree Investment Management to Commercial Industrial Finance Corp. (CIFC). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

HeartLand Financial USA, Dubuque, Iowa, has hired a former Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage (BSRM) executive and his team from a failed Arizona thrift to lead what it hopes will be a growing mortgage operation.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) chairman Sheila Bair is calling on Treasury officials to streamline the loan modification process and require writedowns of second mortgages.

The Bank of England issued a market notice indicating that it plans to move ahead with new disclosure requirements, according to a Reuters report.