GE Mortgage Insurance is seeking to add more local market expertise to promote its products in Europe, where it offers loan-level or portfolio-wide insurance to mortgage lenders. Portfolio-wide insurance is the type most commonly used for pools that end up in the securitization market. The unit, which is part of GE Insurance's broader financial insurance and reinsurance activities, currently operates in the U.K., Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy but ultimately would like to operate on a pan-European basis, according to Eric Klopfer, a v.p. in regulatory and legal affairs in London. "We see our role as providing some of the building blocks needed to create a pan-European market for mortgage credit," he says.
Klopfer says GE will consider deals similar to a recent E21 million wrap on a first-loss piece that Dublin-based PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. provided on a deal from German mortgage lender Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank. However, since that deal entailed buying equity in one of the bank's existing synthetic securitizations, Klopfer says it as not as attractive as offering loan-level insurance or portfolio credit enhancement.
