Europe

CIFC has hired Joshua Hughes as head of European marketing, based out of London and reporting to co-ceo, Oliver Wriedt. Hughes was previously head of global distribution at Muzinich & Co. He will lead the firm’s fundraising efforts in the UK and throughout Europe as the firm establishes its European platform.

Simon Collingridge and Tony Ward of Home Funding Limited and Jaap van Raak and Michel van der Sluis of the Dutch Mortgage Consultants have formed a new joint venture called Fortrum. The firm, based in Utrecht and London, will specialise in European risk audit and due diligence for financial assets across Europe. 

ILS

John English has been named ceo of Aon’s captive and insurance management unit as 1 June 2018. English is currently coo and md of Aon captive and insurance management, EMEA. English has been with Aon for 10 years and has over three decades of global experience across insurance, reinsurance and alternative capital markets.

Mexican default

TMMCB 10, a Mexican securitisation of cash flows related to offshore vessels recently defaulted due to excessive sponsor risk and other structural issues. Fitch has also identified PLANFCB 14, 15 and 16 which shows signs of potential stress due to the risk of a weak sponsor in a revolving transaction with short-term assets and little third party oversight.

North America

Allianz Real Estate has appointed Peggy DaSilva as head of its loan and asset management group for the Americas. Based in the New York office, she will be responsible for actively managing a US$16bn US portfolio of commercial real estate debt and equity investments, including sales, loan modifications and restructurings. She was previously md at Canyon Partners Real Estate in New York, and before that worked at CBRE Global Investors, Rockefeller Group, Deutsche Bank, Citi, Chemical Bank and Bank of America.

Barclays has hired John Clements as head of CLO origination and syndication in the US. Clements, who will be based in New York, will report to Drew Mogavero, head of US credit flow trading at Barclays. He joins from Citi where he spent 15 years co-leading its primary CLO business and is set to start in July. Barclays is bolstering its CLO team, also hiring Mike Hopson and Lorraine Medvecky from Natixis to set up a new middle-market CLO platform and are also expected to join in July.

Kirkland & Ellis has recruited Ranesh Ramanathan as a corporate partner in its Boston office, focusing on debt finance, distressed/special situations, alternative investments and credit fund transactions. Ramanathan was previously deputy general counsel at Bain Capital and general counsel to Bain Capital’s credit and public equity businesses, having been promoted to managing director in 2015. Prior to that, he was the general counsel of Citi Private Equity and associate general counsel of Citi Alternative Investments.

MUFG has promoted John Lindenberg to head of investment banking for the Americas from his previous role as deputy head of investment banking and head of structured finance. Additionally, Shinichi Sato, currently deputy general manager of MUFG's investment banking credit division in EMEA, will relocate from London to New York to take over as deputy head of investment banking for the Americas and Erik Codrington, an md in the structured finance group, has been appointed head of structured finance. Sato has worked in a number of corporate and investment banking areas, and in several securities businesses including securitization, aviation, and debt research over the course of his 24-year career at MUFG while Codrington has more than 25 years of experience in financing large-scale energy and infrastructure projects throughout the Americas, including advisory, debt capital markets, and syndicated loans. Codrington joined MUFG in 2011 after working at Citigroup and JPMorgan.

Risk retention repealed

As of 10 May 2018, the last opportunity for the US government to file a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court in its risk retention litigation with the LSTA expired, with the agencies choosing not to pursue further action. Thus ends a judicial process initiated by the LSTA on 10 November 10 2014 making final the ruling that managers of pure open market CLOs are exempt from risk retention.

STC criteria finalised

The Basel Committee and IOSCO have issued criteria for identifying simple, transparent and comparable (STC) short-term securitisations, which build on the STC principles published by the two organisations in July 2015 (SCI passim) and incorporate feedback collected during the public consultation conducted in July 2017. The new criteria take account of the characteristics of ABCP conduits, including the different types of programme structures and multiple forms of liquidity and credit support facilities. The changes include clarifying that the criteria do not automatically exclude equipment leases and auto loan and lease securitisations from the short-term STC framework. The Basel Committee has concurrently outlined how the short-term STC criteria could be incorporated into the regulatory capital framework for banks, in order to receive the same modest reduction in capital requirements as other STC term securitisations. A Chapman and Cutler briefing notes that the criteria no longer take the ‘all or nothing’ approach to qualifying for STC status and capital treatment that was proposed in the consultative documents. Bank exposures to individual transactions through ABCP conduits are eligible for more favourable treatment on a transaction-by-transaction basis if the transaction-level criteria are met, regardless of whether the conduit-wide criteria are met by the applicable ABCP conduit.

Syncora reinsurance approved

The New York State Department of Financial Services has approved a reinsurance transaction – totalling approximately US$14.5bn in net par – between Syncora Holdings and Assured Guaranty Corp, together with the related payment on the Syncora Guarantee Inc (SGI) long-term and short-term surplus notes held by third-party holders. Syncora has received the required level of consents from surplus note holders to the waiver of certain restrictions of its master transaction agreement to permit the reinsurance transaction, which is expected to close on 1 June, subject to customary closing conditions. The aim of the transaction is to cap the firm’s insured exposure, leaving SGI in a “more stable and significantly de-levered financial position”. Under the transaction, Assured will reinsure - generally on a 100% quota share basis - SGI-insured financial guaranty insurance policies and commute a book of business previously ceded to SGI by Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. As consideration for the transaction, at closing, SGI will pay US$360m and assign instalment premiums estimated to total US$55m on a present value basis to Assured Guaranty. Included in these amounts are approximately US$100m of statutory loss reserves for RMBS transactions.