So far this year the European securitization market has only publicly placed €9.7 billion ($13.5 billion) of issuance, according Deutsche Bank analysts.
“While we note that some of this lack of issuance has been attributed to rating agency staffing and regulation, we remain cognizant of the fact that both retained and private issuance continue to be executed,” analysts said.
They added that even though issuers may, in some instances, rather have the private placement market’s ease of execution, in terms of the longer term, this does not contribute much toward rebuilding a properly functioning and broadly syndicated market.
The activity on the public front was dominated by the second Italian RMBS deal to be placed since the crisis began. Price guidance was issued on Veneto Banca’s Claris RMBS 2011 announced last week.
Lead managers JPMorgan and Natixis, according to market reports, are offering the €175 million, 1.7-year average life ‘A1’ notes at 120 basis points over three-month Euribor and the €385 million, 2.99-year average life ‘A2’ notes at 160 basis points over the three-month Euribor. Additionally, €591.2 million of triple-A-rated bonds and €203.2 million of unrated bonds are being retained.
On the private side, Rabobank‘s Netherlands-based mortgage lending subsidiary Obvion placed €1.5 billion RMBS with a third-party investor. The deal, called STORM 2011- 1, follows a similar offering the issuer placed last year in the private placement market from the STORM series.
