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JP Morgan has sold its management rights to the structured investment vehicle (SIV), White Pine Corp, to Standard Chartered Bank for an undisclosed sum. Standard Chartered has taken over the management role, with a view to merging the vehicle into its existing SIV, Whistlejacket Capital.

Morgan Stanley is likely to have two new arrows in its ABS quiver during 2006. In December the bank acquired Advantage Home Loans, a UK non-conforming mortgage broker that originates approximately £1bn of mortgages a year. Later that same month, Morgan Stanley agreed to buy credit card firm Goldfish from Lloyds TSB for £1bn. It expects to complete the deal in February

Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank will begin roadshowing a £356m sale-and-leaseback of retailer Toys 'R' Us's UK stores next week. Toys 'R' Us has an unusually low rating for a single tenant transaction of Caa2/B-/CCC, largely a result of poor performance in the US and a leveraged buyout in July 2005 by Global Toys Acquisition, a private equity consortium comprising Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, Bain Capital Partners and Vornado Real Trust.

Wachovia plans to join in Europe's CMBS bonanza by setting up a US style real estate conduit. During 2006 the bank will concentrate on getting the platform up and running with a team of 20-30 people in Germany, before expanding into France, Italy and Spain during 2007 and 2008. The team will be run jointly by Peter Riemenschneider (origination) and Bill Cohane (structuring and execution).

CDOs of hedge fund participations made a successful return to the capital markets this week as Ixis CIB priced a Eu180m market value collateralised fund obligation for AGF Alternative Asset Management, the first such deal for nearly a year.

Interest in the European property derivatives market picked up further this week as ABN Amro and Lehman Brothers closed a sector specific swap, indicating a growing interest among dealers to make a market in these products.

Morgan Stanley is likely to have two new arrows in its ABS quiver during 2006. In December the bank acquired Advantage Home Loans, a UK non-conforming mortgage broker that originates approximately £1bn of mortgages a year. Later that same month, Morgan Stanley agreed to buy credit card firm Goldfish from Lloyds TSB for £1bn. It expects to complete the deal in February

The non-conforming and specialist mortgage pipeline is already building. Specialist mortgage lender Paragon Group is planning to launch a securitisation before the end of the first quarter. Few details are yet available, although the deal is expected to be similar in terms of size and structure to the issuer's last offering, Paragon Mortgages No 10. That deal, priced in November last year, pooled 5,225 buy to let mortgages, totalling $1.1bn. Meanwhile Mortgages Plc is planning a securitisation of non-conforming mortgages in March, worth around £750m. Merrill Lynch, which owns the lender, is expected to underwrite the issue.

Commerzbank looks set to bring the first mezzanine financing deal of the year to the market, with CB MezzCap 2006-01, a Eu220m true sale CLO transaction.

An otherwise quiet week in the primary European ABS market was enlivened by the price talk for the latest issue from Northern Rock's Granite master trust, issued by Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch on Wednesday. With all eyes on the performance of the deal, many traders and investors noted that the guidance seemed relatively cheap at the triple-B level. These notes are talked at 65bp over, some 10bp wide of secondary levels. While one trader argued that the leads had misjudged the market, others expected guidance to narrow as the deal gained momentum.

The securitisation of electricity tariff receivables for Italian energy transmission company Gestore della Rete Trasmissione Nazionale has been put on hold, possibly indefinitely, pending the introduction of a special legal framework for the deal. Last September GRTN mandated Banca IMI, Lehman Brothers and Nomura to advise on and arrange a securitisation programme for tariff payments. The receivables, known as the 'A3' component, are paid by customers as part of their utility bills to compensate GRTN for subsidies it made to alternative energy producers after the country's nuclear moratorium in 1987. The purpose of the intended securitisation was to upfront the payments and restructure the subsidies, simultaneous achieving a cost saving for the Italian public. The mandate originally envisaged a deal of around Eu1.5bn by the end of last year, and several more issues in coming years.