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...

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...

One GSE watcher called it, "The biggest company quarterly profit since the Roman Empire, adjusted for inflation of course.”

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

Rep. Sherman of California noted: “Studies have shown that in some geographic areas, it is possible to determine the identity of nearly 100 percent of the borrowers using the data that lenders are required to collect and report by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau late last week filed its much-anticipated response to the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to grant the agency’s request for an en banc rehearing in its legal wrangling with PHH Mortgage over allegations of violating the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. The CFPB made three main arguments. First, the bureau’s structure is constitutional. “Neither the bureau’s single-director structure, nor the for-cause removal provision, unduly interferes with the president’s ability to take care that the laws be faithfully executed” under the U.S. Constitution, it said. If the court were to decide that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional, the bureau added...

A shift in recent years in servicing from banks to nonbanks has been pinned on the capital treatment for bank holdings of mortgage servicing rights, among other issues. However, a survey conducted by the American Bankers Association found that few small banks are selling MSR due to capital standards or other regulatory requirements. The ABA surveyed 159 banks as part of its annual real-estate lending survey. About 76.0 percent of the participating institutions had assets of less than $1.0 billion. Only 2.0 percent of respondents said...

As might be expected, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, did his best to pummel the CFPB and its Director Richard Cordray during a hearing Wednesday.