North America

David Sykes has rejoined Chapman and Cutler as a partner, expanding the firm's San Francisco office and asset securitisation department. Prior to rejoining, he was most recently at Renew Financial where he served as general counsel.

Onex has appointed Tate Abols to its investor relations and fund development team as md. Abols was most recently a principal on the Onex Partners team and prior to this was at RBC Capital Markets in the M&A group.

Brian Grow has been named president of Morningstar Credit Ratings. He takes over from Vickie Tillman who retired late last year. Grow was most recently md in RMBS and ABS at the firm and has been with Morningstar since 2011.

BlueMountain Capital Management has hired Colin Teichholtz in the newly created position of head of global governments and agency MBS, effective immediately. He was previously partner and member of the executive committee at Pine River.

Olshan Frome Wolosky has hired John Moon to the role of partner in the litigation practice. Prior to joining Olshan, Moon was a partner in the financial and securities industries practice at Miller & Wrubel, where he represented clients in securities regulatory matters and in complex civil litigation involving structured finance. He also represented financial institutions in civil disputes involving CDO's, CLO's and warehouse agreements.

Sequioa Economic Infrastructure Income Fund has hired Tim Drayson and Kate Thurman as independent consultants. Drayson was most recently global head of corporate sales and deputy head of the European corporate debt platform at BNP Paribas. Thurman has recently worked as a credit researcher and debt portfolio specialist for Rogge Global Partners, New Bond Street Asset Management, Dresdner Bank and independently as a consultant.

EMEA

Fair Oaks Capital has hired Tyler Wallace to the role of md, starting next week. Wallace is coming from MeDirect, previously known as MedBank, where he was head of corporate credit.

The European Investment Fund is hiring a structured finance analyst at associate level on a three year contract working with both cash and synthetic securitisation processes. Banca IMI is also expanding and is looking to hire a senior risk transfer solutions structurer, based in Milan.

Partnerships

PeerIQ has partnered with Cross River with the goal of facilitating capital sourcing between non-bank lenders and institutional loan buyers. The result of the effort could help community banks and other loan buyers to more easily access the marketplace loan sector.

RAIT Review

RAIT Financial Trust has concluded its review of strategic and financial alternatives (SCI 8 September 2017), which included operational/strategic refinements, recapitalisation and a sale of all or part of the company. However, at this time, the board has determined that RAIT should take steps to increase the company's liquidity and better position it to meet its financial obligations. These steps include: the cessation of RAIT's lending business and the reduction of costs within its other operating businesses; continuing to sell RAIT's property portfolio, while servicing and managing its existing commercial real estate loan portfolio; and engaging a financial advisor to assist RAIT during this process.

Tender offer

Clifden IOM No.1 has launched a cash tender offer for Fairhold Securitisation CMBS bonds. The purchase price for the class A and B notes is respectively 40% and 1% of the principal amount, with an additional 20% and 4% offered as an early tender premium. The early tender deadline is 2 March, while the expiration deadline is 18 May and settlement is expected on 23 May.

NPL financing

Banca IFIS has closed its second non-performing loan securitisation, backed by mainly secured assets originated by an undisclosed large Italian banking group and purchased by a Cerberus affiliate in November. The bank acted as lender, with an investment of about €40m via subscribing to the senior and part of the junior notes.

STS analysis

In order to help market participants transition to the new STS regime, PCS is launching STS Reports, which will analyse a securitisation against the criteria set out in the STS regulation. The aim is to determine whether the transaction meets those criteria and, if it does not, which criteria are not met and why. The analysis will be provided on request.

Auctions ended

The AOFM has completed its RMBS divestment process. Results for its eleventh and final auction were released on 22 February, indicating that A$312.88m (amortised face value) of paper was sold. Bids for the IDOL 2010-1 A2, SMHL 2011-2 A, SMHL 2012-1 A3, TORRENS 2010-2 A4 and TORRENS 2010-3 A5 bonds were accepted at over par.