Sector developments and company hires

Alhambra missed payment
A borrower of a €10m loan securitised in the Alhambra SME Funding 2019-1 transaction has missed its February interest payment. The servicer says it is in “close contact” with the borrower and does not believe it is a defaulted loan, as defined in the prospectus. The borrower expects to receive funds in the coming weeks, which will allow it to pay the February interest. Meanwhile, a different borrower in the pool has repaid its entire €10m loan, plus a full make-whole payment of €2.12m.

Bridge loan deal inked
Toorak Capital Partners has priced a US$400m securitisation of residential bridge loans, the largest ever issuance in the asset class. Dubbed Toorak Mortgage Trust 2020-1, the transaction is the fourth residential bridge loan securitisation issued by the company and brings its cumulative securitisation volume to US$1.25bn. The latest deal drew investor orders significantly in excess of the quantity of notes offered, and the offering was upsized by 33% during the marketing period. The transaction features a two-year revolving period, during which time loan payoffs can be reinvested in new loans.

Dutch VAT grace period
The Dutch tax authorities are currently considering the term of a grace period in connection with the VAT due on CLOs domiciled in the Netherlands (SCI 24 February). A such, CLO issuers have been orally informed by the authorities that they will not apply their recently revised position on the VAT exemption.

ESG approach published
DBRS Morningstar has published its approach to ESG risk factors in credit ratings. The agency considers 17 significant ESG risk factors within its analysis and incorporates them in its issuer and transaction-specific ratings for the life of the transaction/rating. It will provide ESG disclosures in all press releases, specifically addressing instances where ESG risk factors are a key rating driver that affect a credit rating or rating outlook.

North America
Ares Management Corporation has appointed Adam Heltzer as md and head of ESG, effective 1 April. He will be based in New York and report to Michael Arougheti, ceo and president of Ares. Under Heltzer’s guidance, the firm will seek to enhance its existing ESG efforts and establish a more robust framework for assessing and reporting against key performance indicators across its credit, private equity and real estate strategies. He previously oversaw a team managing the integration of ESG factors at Partners Group and before that served as a global leadership fellow at the World Economic Forum and worked at The Louis Berger Group and CG/LA Infrastructure.

New Residential Investment Corp has added key leadership roles to its mortgage subsidiary NewRez, including Baron Silverstein as president and Neeraj Kalani as chief marketing officer. Silverstein will report to Bruce Williams, ceo of NewRez, and has spent the last 12 years at Bank of America Securities, most recently as head of residential mortgage finance. Before that, he held RMBS leadership roles at JPMorgan and Bear Stearns. Most recently, Kalani was head, global customer strategy at Pfizer and has also worked at PepsiCo, The Clorox Company, General Electric and Hewlett Packard.

Taxonomy recommendations released
The Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (TEG) has published its final reports and recommendations to the European Commission on the EU Taxonomy. The Taxonomy Regulation (TR), agreed at the political level in December 2019, sets out the framework and environmental objectives for the Taxonomy, as well as new legal obligations for financial market participants, large companies, the EU and member states. The TR will be supplemented by delegated acts that contain detailed technical screening criteria for determining when an economic activity can be considered sustainable and hence can be considered Taxonomy-aligned.