Europe

CLO Spreads Continue to Tighten Amid Refinance Activity

The risk premium that investors demand for holding CLOs continues to decline as refinancing activity continues to dominate the new issuance, and the trend looks set to continue heading into the final two months of the year.

Investcorp Buys 3i CLO/Asset Business for £222M

Investcorp is buying the debt management business of 3i Group for £222 million (US$270.6 million, giving the Bahrain-based private equity firm with one of the larger cross-border CLO management operations.

GE Money Pools €1.56B in French-Loan RMBS

The debt consolidation loans originated by GE are backed by French homes, in a deal arranged by Morgan Stanley and the second true-sale securitization of debt consolidation receivables. The deal builds on a smaller initial €871.2 million SapphireOne issuance in July.

Outlook for Spreads, Defaults Still Cloudy, Credit Managers Say

In a quarterly survey by the New York-based International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers, 57% of respondents expect wider credit spreads in U.S. investment grade debt and 70% in U.S. high yield bonds and leveraged loans over the final three months of the year. Also for the fourth quarter, 66% see rising levels of corporate defaults.

Why This Florida Regulator is Crying Foul Over Two Letters

The Florida Public Service Commission has a beef with Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, and Fitch Ratings, which all characterize bonds backed by utility fees as a kind of structured finance, rather than as corporate bonds.

UK’s Hawksmoor Pooling More Ex-GE Home Loans

Hawksmoor Mortgages 2016-2 plc is a British sterling-pound denominated RMBS with a £1.124 billion pool balance secured by mortgages to residential properties in the UK extended to 12,153 borrowers. Eighty percent were originated by GE's UK home-lending arms that have since sold off portfolios and exited the British mortgage scene.

VW Rolls Out Latest Vehicle Lease ABS

While Volkswagen continues its international efforts to remedy its 2015 diesel-engine emissions scandal, the German automaker also carries on with its ramped-up efforts since last fall to raise more capital through securitizations. The latest transaction is a €750 million (US$837.5 million) static pool of German vehicle lease receivables from both retail and commercial contracts.

BBVA RMBS Tackles Re-Performing Loans

An affiliate of BBVA is securitizing €265 million in Spanish mortgages, a majority of which are formerly delinquent loans from the Catalonia region returned to performing status.

Group BPCE Issuer Pooling Card Receivables

A pool of credit card receives issued by Group BPCE’s Natixis Financement unit are being securitized in the second-ever issuance through the Purple Master Credit Cards, FCT in France. The €651 million transaction mostly consists of €550 million in a Class A2016-1 series of notes.

Obvion Structuring 39th STORM Dutch Home Mortgage Deal

Moody’s Investors Service has assigned provisional ratings to five classes of notes in STORM 2016-II B.V., a €1.15 billion pooling of 5,729 30-year home loans to consumers in The Netherlands. The sizes of the Euro-denominated notes are to be determined.