In a move intended to maintain the integrity of data that helps guide the decisions of MBS investors, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority last week fined Citigroup Global Markets $3.5 million for allegedly providing “inaccurate mortgage performance information, supervisory failures and other violations” in connection with subprime residential MBS. “Citigroup posted data for its RMBS deals that it should have known was inaccurate; and even after they learned that the data was inaccurate, Citigroup did not correct the problem until years later,” said Brad Bennett, FINRA executive vice president and...

The growth of mortgage real estate investment trusts over the last several years has been driven by high market returns and changes in the MBS and mortgage markets, according to a new sector analysis by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts reported that total mortgage REIT capitalization jumped to $43.0 billion at year-end 2011 from just $1.6 billion in 2000. Since the start of 2012, the combined market REIT capitalization has gone up to $55.0 billion, the group noted. The only setback to the growth trend occurred in 2008 as a result of the collapse of...

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s no-action letter that cleared the way for the Royal Bank of Scotland to register public offerings of covered bonds is likely to fuel demand for U.S. dollar-denominated covered bonds, according to Fitch Ratings. The SEC letter paves the way for issuers to offer covered bonds to a wider range of investors than previous bonds issued under the restrictive Rule 144A of the Securities Act of 1993, said Fitch analyst Vanessa Purwin. The rule provides a safe harbor from registration requirements for certain securities that are resold privately to qualified large...

More companies are seeking ratings for their warehouse lending facilities, but these programs require special consideration, according to a new report from DBRS. In the past, securitization warehouse facilities were mostly un-rated because they were completely executed and funded by banks or their conduits. But industry participants are now more keenly interested in assessing the relative risk of these entities, DBRS said. For instance, warehouse ABS may have a change in collateral composition thanks to a revolving period in warehouse facilities. To make up for this dynamism, other...

It’s a good time to be on the playing field in the consumer ABS sector, as long as you’re on top of the trends in a perhaps more focused market environment characterized largely by shifting supply and demand dynamics, top industry representatives suggest. John McElravey, senior analyst and head of consumer ABS research at Wells Fargo Securities, told participants at last week’s national meeting of the American Securitization Forum that he’s seeing a revival of consumer ABS, noting rising issuance with a focus on the auto sector, along with a shorter maturity profile. Prime auto is about 32.1...

The government’s multi-billion dollar investment bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allowed the two government-sponsored enterprises to avoid an insolvency that could have triggered the collapse of the U.S. housing finance system, concluded a new report by the official watchdog of the GSEs’ regulator. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General’s report – “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Where the Taxpayers’ Money Went” – noted that the U.S. Treasury had dropped some $185 billion into the two GSEs since early September 2008 through the end of last year. “The enterprises’ shareholders lost...

Most of the non-mortgage securitization market seems to be approaching the more normal levels that were seen prior to the financial crisis, according to market participants, analysts and observers gathered for the annual meeting of the American Securitization Forum this week in Washington, DC. “We’ve come a pretty long way, if you think about 2008, pre-2008 and post-crisis,” said Bob Behal, principal with The Vanguard Group. He noted that there have been healthy pricing levels in auto loan and credit card ABS and more active student loan and container sectors, as well as some interesting niche products and...

Collateralized loan obligations and the securitization of esoteric ABS are gaining momentum in a market that is still missing one of the key ingredients of the boom years – non-agency residential mortgages – according to experts at the American Securitization Forum annual meeting this week. When Sara Bonesteel, managing director and head of alternative investments at Prudential Fixed Income, described the appeal of CLOs, she may as well have been outlining the antithesis of the current RMBS market. The CLO sector has fewer regulatory issues, relatively strong performance in the underlying asset and the...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. late last week filed separate lawsuits against a number of companies that issued or underwrote non-agency MBS purchased by Citizens National Bank and Strategic Capital Bank, two Illinois banks that failed in May 2009. The two banks purchased some $140.5 million of non-agency MBS issued by Bear Stearns, Citicorp, Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch. The lawsuits also name JPMorgan Securities, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Ally Securities, HSBC Securities, RBS Securities and UBS Securities as underwriters of these transactions. The FDIC is seeking $77.0...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has given Royal Bank of Canada the green light to issue residential mortgage covered bonds registered in the U.S. The SEC granted permission through a no-action letter shortly after RBC submitted plans for a program through which covered bonds backed by U.S. home loans will be offered to U.S. investors. RBC is a “foreign private issuer” under U.S. securities laws and, as a Form S-3 issuer, has a registered shelf with the SEC through which it can offer multiple securities on an immediate, continuous or even on a delayed basis. Covered bonds are debt securities backed by cash...