Ponte Vecchio II, a E451 million Italian lease securitization from Centro Leasing S.p.A., has been withdrawn from the market. The deal had been scheduled to be priced last week. Edwina Frawley, a spokeswoman for BNP Paribas in London, the deal's underwriter, says BNP and Centro Leasing have put off the deal until later this year, because market conditions were not right for the launch.
London-based securitization bankers say Ponte Vecchio--named after the bridge in Florence which spans the Arno River--was being price talked at 45 basis points over three-month EURIBOR. Last month, Maestrale, a E241.7 million Italian lease deal was priced at 55 over. Rival syndicate desks say that even though price talk on Ponte Vecchio widened to 53-55 over before it was pulled, the size of the deal may have made it a hard sell. Previously, Italian deals had priced in the 30 to 40 basis point range, but some analysts suggest a better price would have been 60 over.
Merrill Lynch's London-based international securitization research team recently pointed out in its weekly research piece, that, in general, the complexity of Italian lease deals and the lack of uniformity from deal to deal, make them risky for the spreads being received by investors.
