Securitization

Advanta Bank terminated its cash tender offer for up to $1.4 billion of Advanta Business Card Master Trust’s Class A senior notes, indicating that the offer failed to satisfy a regulatory condition. The variables that were expected to impact the credit performance of the trust have not changed with the withdrawal of the tender offer.

Thanks to record low interest rates, residential lenders funded $466 billion in product during the first quarter, a 68% jump from the dismal fourth quarter, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News.

Last Friday, Banco Internacional del Peru (Interbank) priced a $121.2 million, seven-year deal backed by diversified payment rights (DPRs). The yield came to 425 basis points over three-month Libor. Deutsche Bank was the sole lead.

Cantor Fitzgerald and Piper Jaffray & Co. have expanded their debt capital markets groups with several hires. Lee Hetfield and Jason Kopcak have joined Cantor as co-heads of its whole loan sales and trading division, while Piper Jaffray has hired David Wirdnam as a debt advisor and Matt Traina as head of the firm’s coverage of west coast financial sponsors.

Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) named Patrick Sargent as president of CMSA for the year June 2009 to June 2010.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan is urging HUD to require escrow accounts for tax and insurance on FHA-insured reverse mortgages while the banking regulators work on consumer protection guidelines.

Standard & Poor's Friday downgraded MBIA Inc.'s public finance subsidiary, National Public Finance Guaranty Corp., to A from AA-minus. The outlook is developing.

Banking companies have done a good job implementing a number of best practices in risk management, such as hiring chief risk officers and increasing board oversight, according to the sixth edition of Deloitte & Touche LLP's Global Risk Management Survey.

Ethan Klemperer joined Experian as the senior vice president and general manager of its capital markets business.

While rating actions across the capital structure of many recent vintage CMBS deals will be considerable, mezzanine and super-senior ‘AAA’-rated classes should stay ‘AAA’ for the near term, according to Fitch Ratings. The rating agency continues its review of 2006-2008 fixed-rate conduit and fusion transactions.

GMAC Financial Services has named Jeff Lemieux, a hedge fund executive, senior vice president of fee based servicing.

Two-thirds of the AAA-rated private private-label MBS purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae have been downgraded to "junk," the GSEs' regulator told a congressional panel, and only a small portion is still rated AAA.

Cantor Fitzgerald has hired George Goncalves as the head of its fixed income rates strategy, the firm said today. In this new position, he will lead the firm’s effort to create a strategy team and develop new fixed income trading strategies.

The recent headlines on residential mortgage credit performance have remained gloomy. The quarterly delinquency survey published by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) painted a pretty desolate picture of mortgage credit performance in the first quarter of 2009, and data from outfits such as RealTrac show continued increases in foreclosures, particularly in the Foreclosures Started category.

The European Securitization Forum and Information Management Network chose a more somber setting - London - for this year's Global ABS gathering held last week.

Regulators are shifting their view on securitization from being highly suspicious to realizing it is an integral part of the financial markets. Securitization industry players now see the importance of regulatory involvement to get the market back on track, said speakers at this year's European Securitization Forum/Information Management Network Global ABS conference.

The crowded halls of the new and - many hoped - temporary home of this year's European Securitization Forum/Information Management Network Global ABS gathering held in London last week could serve as a testament to the still-strong interest in securitization.

While ABS activity in Latin America is still slumping and the region lacks the aggressive repo programs of central banks in the U.S. and Western Europe, signs of hope are materializing.

The announcement last month that the European Central Bank (ECB) is supporting the covered bond market with purchases worth E60 billion ($83.6 billion) has added further momentum to the covered bond market.

With the first round of the Federal Reserve's Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility (TALF) for CMBS set for the end of June, market players remain cautiously optimistic that the program could add some much-needed momentum to the sector.