State attorneys general from Delaware and Massachusetts announced a $25.9 million settlement last week with Santander Consumer USA Holdings involving subprime auto ABS. The settlement relates to post-crisis activity and the AGs said it was the first settlement with state AGs relating to subprime auto loan funding. The office for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said the settlement is part of the AG’s ongoing review of securitization practices in the subprime auto market. “We found...

Golden State Tobacco Securitization Corp. is preparing to issue a $618.8 million ABS backed by revenues from a tobacco settlement reached in 1998. Several states have issued such deals, though the sector received a blow last year when Fitch withdrew its ratings and criteria for tobacco ABS. Under the settlement with 46 states and Washington, DC, the major cigarette manufacturing companies must make payments to each state annually, in perpetuity. The payments are based on cigarette sales, among other factors. At the time of the settlement, the revenues for states were estimated to be $306.0 billion for the first 25 years of the agreement. States can issue...

Single-family rental operator Invitation Homes expects to enter into its previously announced $1 billion financing agreement with Fannie Mae sometime in the second quarter, using the net proceeds to pay down loans racked up while issuing MBS. According to an update provided in a new 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Invitation – which went public earlier in the year – will “repay all remaining amounts outstanding under our mortgage loan relating to the IH1 2014-1 securitization and approximately $529.0 million of our mortgage loan relating to the IH1 2014-2 securitization.” Grubstaked by The Blackstone Group, IH has been...

Despite rumors to the contrary, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forked over most of their fourth-quarter earnings to the Treasury Department at the end of March, as scheduled. But some industry insiders wonder whether the timing of future payments will be altered to reduce the likelihood that either of the government-sponsored enterprises might need another bailout. In early March, there were talks predicting, or hoping for everything from a possible suspension of the Treasury sweep to replacing the quarterly payment with an annual one. Speculation may have been fueled by uncertainty about what the Trump administration wants to do about the now eight-year-old conservatorships of the two GSEs. In 2017, Fannie and Freddie can only retain...

Fink is expected to leave Fannie Mae in the second half of the year.

Wells Fargo’s legal woes are continuing after a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week ordered the company to face several lawsuits by institutional investors alleging MBS fraud. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that Wells Fargo must face five lawsuits by a few dozen funds that are holding the bank liable for losses incurred after the MBS they purchased lost value due to the financial crisis. The plaintiffs include...

As its footprint in the residential credit market expands, counterparties are looking to Annaly as a source of liquidity…

GSE originators have long complained that the rep-and-warrant policies need to be more transparent.

How much slack can the purchase market pick up? We’re about to find out…

Deephaven is headed by former Goldman Sachs managing director Matt Nichols, who earlier this year predicted strong growth for the correspondent buyer of non-QM loans…