Capital Relief Trades
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Ratings resilience
Shorter pro-rata periods to benefit SRTs
A sharp deterioration in asset performance due to the coronavirus fall-out may lead to sequential pay triggers in predominantly pro-rata paying significant risk transfer deals being breached earlier than initially assumed. Shortened pro-rata periods may, in turn, increase the resilience of note ratings to declining asset performance and the associated upward revision of default base cases.
As part .......
News 5 May 2020
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WAM guidelines finalised
Sector developments and company hires
WAM guidelines finalised
Market Moves 4 May 2020
The EBA has published its final guidelines on the determination of the weighted average maturity (WAM) of the contractual payments due under the tranche of a securitisation transaction, as laid down in the CRR. These guidelines aim at ensuring that the methodology applicable for the determination of the WAM for regulatory purposes is sufficiently transparent and harmonised .......
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CRT vol aims for the stars
No longer staid and dependable, the CRT market is at record-breaking volatility
Despite a levelling out in April, volatility in the credit risk transfer market remains extremely elevated, particularly in the context of an asset class that hitherto has demonstrated very little volatility at all.
Annualised vol for the CRT sector was 13.06% at the end of April, according to data produced by Mark Fontanilla and Co, a Charlotte, North .......
News Analysis 2 May 2020
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Risk transfer round-up - 1 May
CRT sector developments and deal news
Deutsche Bank is rumoured to be readying a large corporate capital relief trade for 2Q20. The bank’s last transaction was completed in January. Dubbed CRAFT 2020-1, the US$150m CLN paid Libor plus 9.5% (see SCI’s capital relief trades database).
....... News 1 May 2020
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Landmark guidance
Implicit support guidelines published
The EBA has published landmark implicit support guidelines as part of its post-coronavirus interventions. According to the paper, banks postponing or reducing payments due to payment moratoria wouldn’t automatically be regarded as providing implicit support, since - by definition - such moratoria are not aimed at reducing any actual or potential losses to investors. Nevertheless, banks will still have .......
News Analysis 1 May 2020
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Prudential flexibility reiterated
Sector developments and company hires
Prudential flexibility reiterated
Market Moves 29 April 2020
The European Commission has adopted a package to help facilitate bank lending to households and businesses throughout the European Union that includes an Interpretative Communication on the EU's accounting and prudential frameworks, as well as targeted ‘quick fix’ amendments to the CRR, in order to maximise the ability of banks to lend and absorb losses related to .......
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Opportunistic buying
Covid-19 kicks off secondary SRT market
Capital relief trade secondary market activity has received a boost from the coronavirus fallout as primary issuance remains largely on hold until the second half of the year. The trend is driven by a variety of factors, including opportunistic buying and portfolio rebalancing (SCI 15 April).
“The secondary SRT market was similar to other fixed income markets. .......
News Analysis 28 April 2020
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Recovery boost
Weatherford revolvers fully repay amid negative outlook
A new case study from SCI has revealed that oil and gas firm Weatherford International is referenced in a capital relief trade following the company’s successful emergence from bankruptcy in December 2019. The revolvers that backed the SRT deal have fully recovered after the chapter 11 restructuring, although the factors that led the company into bankruptcy - including low .......
News Analysis 24 April 2020
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Forbearance risks
Pre-2015 GSE deals could suffer losses
As the coronavirus spreads and servicers offer mortgage forbearance plans to struggling obligors, certain pre-2015 credit risk transfer (CRT) fixed severity deals are set to sustain losses without action from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In contrast, actual loss CRT deals do not automatically suffer losses from credit events, but are exposed to risks from rate reductions, permanent principal .......
News 17 April 2020
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Discounted opportunities
Insurers target SRT secondary market
Insurers are now targeting the capital relief trades secondary market in search of discounted opportunities with an attractive risk profile following the coronavirus crisis. Secondary trades offer diversification and an existing track record of performance, although insurers are primarily eyeing mezzanine and senior tranches jointly with hedge funds, who will be in a position to gain junior exposure.
News 16 April 2020
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Bilateral activity
Opportunistic capital redeployment underway
The European ABS market appears poised to diverge between central bank-eligible issuance and opportunistic capital. Risk-off sentiment dominates, but pockets of bilateral activity are occurring.
“It's an interesting market at the moment. But quite different to the early global financial crisis in that because the central banks reacted so quickly and strongly, there is a sense that some .......
News Analysis 15 April 2020
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Risk transfer reboot
Large corporate SRTs prepped
Capital relief trade issuance is set for a comeback in 2Q20 as a handful of banks are readying large corporate transactions. The reboot in issuance is largely driven by government and central bank programmes and the need to manage bank capital as companies draw down their revolvers.
According to one SRT investor: “Large corporate deals are easier to .......
News Analysis 14 April 2020
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EIF calls for guarantee applications
Sector developments and company hires
EIF calls for guarantee applications
Market Moves 8 April 2020
The European Commission has unlocked €1bn from the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) that will serve as a guarantee to the EIF and allow it to issue special guarantees to incentivise lenders to provide liquidity to at least 100,000 European SMEs and small mid-cap companies hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, .......
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Modelling delinquency deluge
Mortgage market advisers and consultants are struggling to f...
“Our clients are modelling a range of scenarios but are preparing themselves for the worst case including sustained levels of unemployment. Hopefully it won’t be that bad, but they need to prepare themselves,” says Bernadette Kogler, chief executive officer of RiskSpan, a Washington, DC-based analytics and modelling firm which has particular expertise in mortgage markets.
Riskspan clients include .......
News 8 April 2020
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Stochastic modelling
IFRS 9 challenges persist amid pandemic
Supervisors have advised banks to embed the effects of government programmes, such as payment moratoriums, when determining whether assets can be moved from stage one to stage two under IFRS 9. The move has been welcomed by capital relief trade issuers, since it means that payment holidays may not necessarily translate into credit events in transactions. Nevertheless, accounting and .......
News Analysis 8 April 2020
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ESG catalyst?
Positive impact SRTs gaining traction
Significant risk transfer is primarily associated with achieving favourable capital treatment. However, the utility of the instrument as a catalyst for ESG/positive impact financings - by enabling banks to redeploy capital from legacy ‘dirty’ assets into new ‘clean’ assets - is gaining traction, according to SCI’s latest CRT Research Report.
“The capital relief trade market has a .......
News Analysis 3 April 2020
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Breathing space?
EU banks benefit from Basel 3 delay
The Basel Committee's decision last week to delay implementation of the final Basel 3 rules by a year (SCI 30 March) gives banks and supervisors some breathing space to respond to the coronavirus crisis. However, the delay is expected to be more beneficial for EU banks compared to US banks.
Fitch, for one, notes that the delay .......
News 2 April 2020
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CECL delayed
EU banks await IFRS 9 relief
The US Fed, the FDIC and the OCC last week approved an extension of the new credit loss accounting standard CECL until 2022. No equivalent action has been taken for IFRS 9 on the EU side, however.
According to the US regulators’ joint statement, banking organisations that are required under US accounting standards to adopt CECL this year .......
News 31 March 2020
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Capacity constraints
Covid-19 not yet posing solvency issues
Government and central bank actions have kept both the financial system and the real economy afloat in the short-term, amid the coronavirus disruption. The severity of this crisis for company and household finances will depend on the length of the current outbreak and political will, however.
According to Rabobank credit analysts: “Covid-19 is now an imminent issue for .......
News Analysis 30 March 2020
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Closing the gap
Audentia Global investor relations head Sophia Vanco and chi...
Q: How and when did Audentia Global become involved in the capital relief trades market?
The Structured Credit Interview 26 March 2020
NM: Audentia was founded 2.5 years ago by its co-chief investment officers Fasil Nasim and Chris Newman, who had previously worked together in commodity finance at BNP Paribas, in response to the global trade finance market’s US$1.5trn funding gap (as per Asian Development Bank figures). Their .......
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Call for TALF expansion
Sector developments and company hires
BlackRock hired
Market Moves 25 March 2020
The New York Fed has retained BlackRock Financial Markets Advisory as a third-party vendor to operationalise its purchases of agency CMBS and transact with primary dealers on behalf of the SOMA. BlackRock was selected on a short-term basis to serve as an investment manager after considering its expertise in trading and analysing agency CMBS in the secondary market, .......