The new Risk Retention Rule published jointly by the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Securities Exchange Commission, with a little help from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and HUD slouched into the light of day on August 28, in the lee of the holiday weekend. Reportedly, it’s been locked and loaded for months as the regulatory panjandrums wrestled over the politics of the Qualified Mortgage. Really? The day before the long weekend? Isn’t that a tell that it is less than entirely estimable? Didn’t Nixon resign on a Friday? It’s like maybe no one would notice the delivery of a long-anticipated 550 page opus which has, in its gift, the continued vitality of structured finance at large?Continue Reading Risk Retention Re-proposal: The Good, Bad, Ugly And Unintended

Dechert’s securitization team is looking forward to attending the ABS East 2013 (“ABS East”) conference, which kicks off on October 6, 2013 at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, FL. The conference is expecting more than 3,600 participants so it will be an ideal opportunity to connect with clients and other key players in the securitization industry.Continue Reading ABS East 2013 Conference

On August 28, 2013, six federal regulatory agencies (among them, the SEC, Federal Reserve, OCC and the FDIC (collectively, the “Agencies”)) released a 499 page second risk retention proposal (the “Second Proposal”). The Second Proposal covers risk retention for securitizers of all asset-backed securities, but also contains changes aimed directly at CLOs. For CLOs, the rules include both familiar provisions found in the first risk retention proposal (introduced in 2011) and new proposals, some of which are directed at alleviating the substantial burdens the Agencies themselves recognize the Second Proposal imposes on CLOs. Some of the proposals include new combinations of previously proposed forms of retention, new measurement metrics and holder eligibility criteria, hints at how grandfathering will be treated, a projected cash flow test for first-loss holders and an (likely ineffective) open market CLO option. The provisions outlined below do not reflect all changes found in the Second Proposal, but instead are meant to highlight some of the developments CLO participants may find important.Continue Reading Risk Retention Reproposal’s Impact on CLOs: Loan Arrangers Get Invited to the Party that No One Wants to Attend

Here at Dechert, we have seen a slow but steady work stream over the past several years in assisting institutions in either buying or selling of pools of financial assets. Just recently, we advised Wells Fargo Bank in connection with its acquisition of a $4.5 billion performing pool of UK loans and the simultaneous financing of Lone Star’s acquisition of $1.5 billion NPL and SPL pool, all acquired from what had been Euro Hypo’s and now – Hypothekenbank Frankfurt. Needless to say, we would certainly love to see more.  Continue Reading The European Bank Loan Trade Is Not Yet Done

After a large contingent of Dechert attorneys attended April’s IMN CLO and Leveraged Loan Conference, our CLO team returned home optimistic and eager to continue to play a significant role in the thriving CLO market. As the months quickly passed and the clock hit double zeros in the second quarter of 2013, the halftime…

Out of the dimensionless emptiness of the information vacuum surrounding Dodd-Frank risk retention that enveloped us early this year, the word is now spreading, through what you might charitably describe as informal communications (leaks), that the joint regulatory committee responsible for the risk retention rules is about to re-propose something, perhaps as early as September.Continue Reading TO THE BARRICADES! (AGAIN)

If the Nevada Supreme Court affirms a lower court’s ruling that a private sale of real property by a receiver constitutes a foreclosure sale, the lending industry (e.g., lenders, special servicers and maybe borrowers) will lose the ability to seek deficiency judgments in Nevada unless the parties comply with state statutory foreclosure requirements.Continue Reading What’s in a Name?: A Private Sale by a Receiver May Amount to a Foreclosure Sale under Nevada State Law

While we here at CrunchedCredit recognize that many of our readers spend their days deep in commercial lending land, we also like to provide updates for our residential lending friends from time to time (and for our commercial lending friends who like to be able to impress their resi-friends at cocktail parties).

You may have…

Don’t miss your opportunity to catch the New York premiere of the new film,  A Price Worth Paying?, hosted by AIG, AON, Nasdaq OMX and Dechert LLP, happening Tuesday, July 23, at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 5:00pm.  Duncan Wiggetts, a Dechert partner, wrote this drama exploring how important it is for boards of directors …

A bill was recently introduced in the Senate that could result in the wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Under the bi-partisan “Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013”, recently introduced by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be replaced by a new agency, the Federal Mortgage Insurance Corporation (the “FMIC”), tasked with operating a Mortgage Insurance Fund to provide a limited, government-backed guarantee on qualifying, privately issued mortgaged-back securitizations.Continue Reading Dechert OnPoint: Residential Mortgage Securitization Update: GSE Reform Bill