Sector developments and company hires

Italian SME ABS first finalised
Banca Carige and Banca del Monte di Lucca have completed Lanterna Finance 2021, the first Italian SME ABS backed by loans fully guaranteed by the Italian government. The up to €30,000 unsecured loans have been originated based on the ‘Liquidity decree’, converted into law on 5 June 2020, and are fully guaranteed by the Central Guarantee Fund for SMEs managed by Mediocredito Centrale.

As of 31 March, the pool of underlying assets is composed of a portfolio of contracts amounting to €383.73m. The average loan ticket is €19,700 and all loans benefit from a pre-amortisation period lasting on average two years.

The top two industry sectors in the pool, in terms of Moody's industry classification, are construction and building (21.4%) and hotel, gaming and leisure (20%). The top borrower represents 0.01% of the portfolio and the effective number of obligors is above 16,000.

Geographically, the pool is concentrated mostly in Liguria (41.0%) and Toscana (15.3%). The assets were originated mainly between 2020 and 2021 and have a weighted average seasoning of 0.87 years and a weighted average remaining term of 5.5 years.

Moody’s assigned an A3 rating to the €320m class A notes, which benefit from 17.4% credit enhancement on top of the government guarantee.

In other news…

Dutch fintech JV launched
Bishopsfield Capital Partners and ABN AMRO have launched Aymz, a digital platform that connects institutional investors to medium-sized Dutch corporates seeking loan finance. Loans of between €5m-€30m are available via the platform and ABN AMRO will co-lend alongside participating institutional investors. When a lending opportunity arises, the platform will invite participating investors to evaluate and decide whether they are interested.

North America
Jefferies Financial Group has elected Matrice Ellis Kirk and Melissa Weiler to its board. Ellis Kirk is ceo of Ellis Kirk Group, a full-service executive search firm, focusing on governance, succession and leadership team development. Prior to her career in executive recruiting, she was a vp of Apex Securities, an investment banking firm.

Weiler was an md and a member of the management committee of Crescent Capital Group, where she served from January 2011 until she retired in December 2020. During that time, she oversaw Crescent’s CLO management business from July 2017 through December 2020 and managed several multi-strategy credit funds from January 2011 through June 2017. Before that, Weiler worked at TCW.

She currently serves as a Class II director of Owl Rock Capital Corporation and concurrently serves on the boards of several Owl Rock funds. Weiler is also a member of the nominating and corporate governance and audit committees for certain Owl Rock boards, as well as a member of the compensation committee.

RFC issued on risk retention RTS
The EBA has launched a public consultation on draft regulatory technical standards specifying the requirements for originators, sponsors, original lenders and servicers related to risk retention, in line with the Securitisation Regulation. The RTS aim to clarify requirements relating to risk retention, thus reducing the risk of moral hazard and aligning interests. The RTS also provide clarity on new topics, including risk retention in traditional securitisation of non-performing exposures (NPE).

The RTS carry over a substantial amount of provisions from the EBA RTS on risk retention submitted to the European Commission in July 2018. The RTS also include a number of new provisions, such as specifying modalities of risk retention in traditional NPE securitisations and specifying requirements for the expertise of servicers acting as retainers in NPE securitisations.

In addition, the RTS address some specific issues, related, for instance, to the impact of fees payable to the retainer on risk retention, risk retention in re-securitisations or in securitisations of own issued debt instruments. They also provide clarification on the treatment of synthetic excess spread.

Comments on this consultation should be submitted by 30 September. A public hearing will take place online on 2 September.