--Aaron Johnson
Derivative Fitch last week downgraded $30 billion structured finance collateralized debt obligations and placed on watch for downgrade $5.4 billion of CDOs backed by trust preferred securities issued by real estate investment trusts. The structured finance CDO downgrades complete a review of all Fitch-rated CDOs, which resulted in a total of $67 billion of CDO tranches being downgraded.
Merrill Lynch underwrote roughly $12 billion of the 74 structured finance CDOs downgraded, followed by UBS and Credit Suisse with $5 billion and $3 billion each, respectively. The TruPS CDOs include deals from the Attentus, Kodiak and Taberna series, which have already been downgraded by Standard & Poor’s (TS, 9/19).
Fitch officials were not immediately available and a Merrill spokeswoman declined comment. Credit Suisse and UBS spokesmen did not return calls.