Securitization

Corporate credit quality has improved over the last year as company managers have responded to economic pressures to better their companies’ fundamentals, but great global economic risks remain, according to a report released today by research firm Gimme Credit.

Standard & Poor's Fixed Income Risk Management Services (FIRMS) launched a new valuation and risk strategies group.

Crown Mortgage Management said Eric Stoclet will take over as the its CEO effective Feb. 1, following the departure of Steve Haggerty who is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.

Delinquencies rose at the slowest pace in a long time with all the indices experiencing less than a 0.3 point rise in 60+ day delinquencies.

Allen & Overy appointed two new senior counsel in the New York office. David Lucking works in the international capital markets group while Bernd Bohr works in the corporate group. Both are residents in the New York office.

UBS Investment Bank appointed Neal Shear as global head of securities. He will be based in Stamford.

John Olert, group managing director at Fitch Ratings, has been named chief credit officer. Olert has had a 15-year stint at the rating agency and previously headed or co-headed a variety of rating groups within Fitch, including U.S. corporates and U.S. financial institutions.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has approved a new policy stating its position for improving the nation's housing finance system, a stance that calls for continued government backing of a secondary mortgage market.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) will have Michael S. Barr, the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the U.S. Department of Treasury, as featured speaker at the upcoming ASF 2010. Barr will give his speech on Feb. 1.

Besides intensifying the "too big to fail" problem, one side effect of the raft of failures and crisis-driven acquisitions has been the thinning out of competition across a range of financial services markets.

Long criticized for their excessive leverage, the balance sheets at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will explode this quarter as they account for mortgage loans worth trillions.

Sales of existing single-family homes fell 17% in December to an annualized rate of 5.45 million units with distressed purchases accounting for almost one-third of the activity, according to new figures released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Lloyds Banking Group is planning to launch a second RMBS deal this week, according to market reports.

The performance outlooks for ABS and RMBS in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are Negative, said Moody's Investors Service in its 2009 Review & 2010 Outlook report for both asset classes.

Paragon Group U.K. has asked UBS to arrange a roadshow for investors where the firm can talk about updating its strategy for its mortgage program, according to market reports.

Federal regulators have finalized a transition rule to cushion banks from the capital impact of consolidating mortgage securitizations on their balance sheets.

Prior to the recent dark age of credit, CLOs were kings in the land of the leveraged loan, a seat of power that diminished as the recession wore on and the loans in their fiefdoms lost value, causing a medieval-like bleeding of cash. But now sources say CLO cash is back, and the funds may once again be influencing the primary loan market.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave more details Thursday on its plan to weed out underperforming Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lenders.

Capital One Financial Corp. reported its second straight quarterly profit.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on Wednesday announced policy changes it said were designed to strengthen the FHA's capital reserves. The FHA changes are expected to have little impact on housing, or Ginnie Mae supply and prepayments.