Finance Ireland debut overcomes stark rating split

When Ireland’s largest non-bank lender, Finance Ireland, approached the market for its debut term securitization, Pembroke Property Finance, it had to overcome an issue which would have barely occurred pre-crisis — rating agencies which utterly disagreed about the quality of its deal. For S&P, the class ‘D’ notes were a solid A, while its second agency, Fitch, didn’t even consider the tranche investment grade.