Securitization

The House Appropriations Committee has approved an extension of the $729,750 loan limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration through September 2010. The committee also increased the lending and guarantee authority of FHA and Ginnie Mae, as requested by the Obama Administration.

The Federal Reserve's first subscription involving legacy commercial mortgage-backed securities attracted $668.9 million in requests for TALF financing, but analysts at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Research expect better participation in the second subscription on August 20.

Fortress Investment Group, which controls a mid-sized subprime servicing operation, has hired former Fannie Mae chief Daniel Mudd to be its new chief executive.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) announced Friday that it raised over $600 million in capital to serve as collateral under the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) offered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This was over $100 million in excess of the MSIM’s initial $500 million target.

Demica, provider of working capital solutions, and API Software, authors of the automated reconciliation software AutoRek, have signed a joint partnership agreement.

Standard Chartered Bank has appointed Adrian Walkling as the new global head of financial institutions sales, financial markets. He will be responsible for all product sales to institutions globally, with the exception of credit.

General Electric Co. is not primarily a financial services company, but on Friday it was easy to mistake it for one.

As the debate over regulatory reform unfolds, a key question is just how much control over large companies should be vested in one agency.

Syncora Holdings believes it achieved adequate capital strength to meet regulatory requirements after jettisoning nearly $60 billion of loss-laden insurance policies from its books, the company said Friday.

Moody’s Investors Service said that it placed nine securitizations sponsored and serviced by entities within CIT under review for downgrade.

Single-family housing starts unexpectedly jumped 14.4% in June from the previous month as construction activity in Midwest and Northeast broke out of the doldrums.

Not only will PennyMac be servicing nonperforming mortgages for Credit Suisse — which is buying the loans from a troubled American International Group unit — but the vulture fund/servicer has agreed to buy $170 million in notes that will be issued from the deal.

The Federal Reserve Board will consider amendments to the Truth in Lending Act placing new restrictions on mortgage broker compensation.

Chandrajit Bhattacharya has taken over Rod Dubitsky's role as head of ABS research at Credit Suisse.

Responding to the scrutiny toward credit ratings agencies during the past couple of years, Standard & Poor’s outlined four new reforms to restore investor confidence in its ratings and in credit markets.

CLO managers are finding creative ways to restructure their portfolios. Following Morgan Stanley’s announcement last week that it would repackage downgraded CDO tranches backed by leveraged loans into new triple-A-rated securities—the first strategy of its kind — Egret Capital has also come up with a new restructuring tactic.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York received $668.9 million in applications for loans under the Term-Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility's program for commercial mortgage-backed securities.

Sweeping new regulations for credit card issuers are likely to curtail lending and crimp profits. But whose lending — and whose profits?

The Investors’ Working Group (IWG) highlighted their recommendations on financial regulatory reform at its conference held this week in New York.

Chase is in the market with a $1.25 billion credit card deal lead managed by JPMorgan Securities. Co-managers on the transaction are Deutsche Bank Securities and RBS Securities.