S&P rated seven of the 11 non-agency MBS issued in the first three months of 2014, or 78 percent based on dollar volume, according to Inside MBS & ABS.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will ramp up their risk-sharing transactions significantly in 2014, and may see a somewhat expanded share of MBS issuance, under a new conservatorship plan announced this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The revised “scorecard” also tweaks the project to develop a common securitization platform. The FHFA said it wants each of the two government-sponsored enterprises to structure transactions that transfer some portion of the credit risk on $90 billion of residential MBS this year, three times the level they were directed to reach last year. Both companies appear to be well on the way to meeting this requirement. Freddie late last month announced...
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee voted 13-to-9 to report out a revised version of the controversial housing-finance reform legislation, but the bill’s tweaks weren’t enough to win the support of the panel’s liberal Democrat members. Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, released their initial draft in March, which built upon the bill submitted last year by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA. Though the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013, S. 1217, cleared committee with one more than the minimum 12 votes required, an affirmative vote of at least 16 of the 22 members of the panel had been seen...
In a report released last week, the Financial Stability Oversight Council recommended that its members, federal regulators, should finish risk-retention requirements as part of an effort to facilitate “increased private mortgage market activity.” The rulemaking was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, which set an April 2011 deadline for issuance of a final risk-retention rule that would cover non-agency MBS, commercial MBS and non-mortgage ABS. The rule will require securitizers to retain a 5 percent interest, although this would be waived for transactions backed by “qualified” assets, including qualified residential mortgages. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Housing Finance Agency, Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Securities and Exchange Commission issued...
In a few months, mortgage insurance giant Radian Group will close on its $305 million cash purchase of Clayton Holdings, ending the “independent” status of one of the nation’s largest MBS due-diligence firms. Almost all the larger due-diligence companies have been gobbled up by larger players over the past 18 months. Most of the acquirers have other interests in the residential finance industry and are betting on the eventual return of the non-agency MBS market. That could be...
“FHFA hasn’t dropped the ball on the issue,” said one MI consultant who has met with the agency over the topic. “They now know that the [GSE reform bill] is dead and they want to make sure they get it right.”
Blackstone Group, the largest owner of single-family rental properties, is reportedly planning to bring $1 billion of securities backed by rental cash flows to market – the latest in a string of large rental securitization transactions seen in the last couple of months. There are few details about the deal because the transaction is said to be private, Bloomberg reported. Blackstone, however, is said to be working with Deutsche Bank to market the home-rental bonds, which may be offered to investors next month. Blackstone’s latest securitization follows...
Standard & Poor’s ranked as the top rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market and also claimed the top spot in the sputtering non-agency MBS sphere, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking of first-quarter activity. S&P rated seven of the 11 non-agency MBS issued in the first three months of 2014, or 78.0 percent based on dollar volume. Once the perennial leader in non-agency MBS ratings, S&P’s market share has been around 40.0 percent in recent years. DBRS ranked...[Includes two data charts]
Standard & Poor’s is seeking comments on a proposal for assessing operational risk posed by key transaction parties such as servicers in structured finance transactions. The request for comments follows a similar request from S&P in 2011. “We made a number of changes to the previous request for comment in view of the responses we received and our desire to enhance the risk considerations under the proposed operational risk framework,” said Joseph Sheridan, S&P’s criteria officer. “We also expanded the proposal’s scope. Where we believe operational risk could lead to credit instability and a ratings impact, the proposal would call for rating caps that limit the securitization’s maximum potential rating.” The rating service is proposing...
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