Sector developments and company hires

AM promotes three

Alcentra has promoted Daniel Fabian to president and coo. In this role, he will manage the company’s growth strategy and oversee day-to-day operations in order to continue to drive value for clients and employees. Fabian has spent the past 12 years at Alcentra, of which the last four years have been as coo and cfo, bringing the ideal skillset and experience to help run the company.

Joining the senior leadership team are two newly appointed co-cios: Graham Rainbow (previously head of European loans) and Leland Hart (previously head of US loans and high yield).  Both Rainbow, based in London, and Hart, based in New York, will retain their current portfolio management responsibilities and together will oversee and manage the company’s investment portfolios.  The dual role has been created to accommodate the growth of Alcentra across its product strategies and allows the company to effectively deal with growing investor demand for debt capabilities globally.

Following this reorganisation, global cio Vijay Rajguru will also be leaving the firm to pursue other opportunities.  

Disclosure errors eyed

Moody's has placed a number of Mexican RMBS originated and serviced by the Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores (Infonavit) on review for possible downgrade, following the disclosure of errors in the classification and reporting of the non-performing loans ratio. The action reflects the credit negative implications of Infonavit's misreporting of key transaction performance data, the magnitude of which remains uncertain, according to the rating agency. The issuances placed on review comprise: CDVITOT 11U, 11-2U, 11-3U, 12-2U, 14U and 14-2U, as well as CEDEVIS 12U and 13U. Infonavit announced it misreported the delinquency status of up to 116,705 residential mortgage loans and estimates that the re-stated proportion of NPL loans in its portfolio may rise to as high as 11%. Corrected servicer statements for the identified transactions are expected to be published on 15 December, after which Moody’s will analyse the credit impact on the affected deals.

Lending partnership proclaimed

Citadele Bank is partnering with Fellow Finance, and CrossLend whereby Citadele Bank will make investments utilising Fellow Finance’s lending platform, headquartered in Finland, which provides consumer and SME loans in the Nordic countries and Central Europe, while the digital debt marketplace CrossLend is providing its securitisation solution to transform the platform’s loans into securities held by Citadele. The initial investment is €15m. International co-operation will enable Citadele to expand its range of services and offer new products. Citadele is the first bank in the Baltic states, and one of the first in Europe, to issue consumer loans through a peer-to-peer lending platform.

Securitisation platform launched

Perpetual Corporate Trust has launched two new capabilities under its Perpetual Business Intelligence digital platform – Securitisation Intelligence and Treasury Intelligence. The new solutions are aimed at supporting the firm’s clients and industry to automate processes and digitise deal execution and trust management, optimise funding and improve the investor experience.

SF partner hired

Latham & Watkins has hired Steve Curtis to its London office as a partner in the finance department. Curtis’ practice focuses on a broad range of structured finance transactions, with particular expertise in the regulated utility, infrastructure and real estate sectors and in complex corporate securitisations. Curtis was previously at Clifford Chance.