Sector developments and company hires

Defence Bank debuts Aussie RMBS
Defence Bank (DBL) is prepping its inaugural public Australian prime RMBS, the A$300m DBL Funding Trust No. 1 Salute Series 2021-1. DBL provides financial products and services to members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), as well as the broader community.

DBL is one of three lenders selected to provide home loans to ADF members under the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme (DHOAS). This scheme, supported by the Commonwealth government and administered by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, subsidises a material portion of monthly home loan interest payments.

Around 75% of loans in the pool are to borrowers who at the time of origination were ‘uniformed’ employees of the ADF. As such, Moody’s notes they have a lower default risk than an average borrower, given their employment stability. Furthermore, 37% of these loans benefit from the DHOAS.

The weighted average scheduled loan to value ratio of the pool of 71% and it has a weighted average seasoning of around 33 months.

As of December 2020, DBL had total assets of over A$2.8bn, with Australian residential mortgage assets representing A$2.3bn.

In other news…

Aircraft ABS issuers to merge
AerCap Holdings has entered into a definitive agreement with General Electric to acquire 100% of GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), both regular aircraft ABS issuers. The combined company will have over 2,000 owned and managed aircraft, over 900 owned and managed engines, over 300 owned helicopters and approximately 300 customers worldwide. The combined entity would lease to 25% of the world’s airlines, according to JPMorgan figures.

German CMBS refi prepped
Bank of America is in the market with its third European CMBS in the space of a month, following Taurus 2021-1 UK and Taurus 2021-2 SP (SCI passim). The latest deal, Taurus 2021-3 DEU, is backed by a €497.89m pari passu portion of two cross-collateralised loans together totalling €547.98m.

Both loans are refinancing loans previously securitised in the Taurus 2018-3 DEU CMBS. The largest loan is secured by a mixed-use office and hotel property connected to Frankfurt International Airport Terminal 1. The smaller loan is secured by the corresponding parking complex.

According to S&P, the total market value of the asset is €832.6m, as of September 2020, and the LTV ratio is 65.8%.

MPL acquisition to ‘accelerate’ bank charter
SoFi is set to acquire for US$22.3m Golden Finance Bancorp and its wholly owned subsidiary Golden Pacific Bank, a California-based community bank that is regulated by the OCC. The transaction is expected to complete before year-end, subject to regulatory approvals, and will expand SoFi’s book of assets by US$150m.

Although SoFi applied for a national bank charter with the OCC in October, this acquisition accelerates its route to a bank charter because change of control applications are typically faster to complete than de novo applications. Golden Pacific and its community bank business will continue to operate as a division of SoFi Bank.