Sector developments and company hires

UKAR pair preplaced
Citi has preplaced a pair of UK non-conforming RMBS backed by a portfolio it acquired from UKAR. The transactions – the £2.898bn Jupiter Mortgage No. 1 and the £1.559bn Stratton Mortgage Funding 2021-2 - securitise a pool of first-lien owner-occupied and buy-to-let loans originated by NRAM, GMAC-RFC, Mortgage Express, Kensington, Keystone Property Finance, Bradford & Bingley, Legal & General and Close Brothers.

The assets have a weighted-average seasoning of 13.6 years and are primarily concentrated in London and the South-East. The Jupiter Mortgage No. 1 pool has a weighted-average current indexed LTV ratio of 64.3% and a weighted-average original LTV of 82.5%.

The Stratton Mortgage Funding 2021-2 pool has high exposure to interest-only loans (at 92.3%), while 9.2% of the mortgage loans are currently in arrears equal to or greater than one month. Additionally, 2.4% of the mortgage loans by balance are currently granted payment holidays due to Covid-19.

At inception, UKAR’s book had a balance of about £115bn, which is now down by almost 90%, according to S&P.

In other news…

EMEA
HIG Capital has expanded its European WhiteHorse direct lending team with the hiring of Ignacio Blasco as md. Based in Madrid, Blasco joins from Houlihan Lokey, where he was md. He has experience in leveraged finance and direct lending, covering various sectors and investment strategies.

Global
Latham & Watkins has elected 19 counsel to its partnership, effective 1 March. The counsel with structured finance experience that have been promoted include: Cindy Caillavet Sinclair of the Chicago banking practice; Simon Hawkins of the Hong Kong financial regulatory practice; Thomas Cochran and JP Sweny of the London structured finance practice and project development & finance practice respectively; and Suzana Sava-Montanari of the Paris capital markets practice.

Judo Bank hits the market
Judo Bank is in the market with its debut securitisation. Dubbed Judo Securitisation Trust 1R, the A$1.02bn transaction is backed by a portfolio of predominantly term loans, line of credit facilities and equipment leases to Australian SMEs. Of the portfolio balance, 81% benefits from security over real estate.

Judo Bank is an Australian challenger bank, which started originating business loans in late 2018 and has grown its loan book to over A$2.6bn by year-end 2020, according to Moody’s. The firm has a focused relationship-centric business banking model, differentiating it from other Australian business banking lenders. It pursues a multi-channel distribution model using commercial brokers and direct channels.

The AOFM last year invested in a warehouse sponsored by Judo Bank under its Structured Finance Support Fund (SCI 12 May 2020).