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US president-elect Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan is a dialled down version of what Democratic candidates were proposing on the campaign trail in the run up to the 2020 election. But rather than focus on the incoming president’s priorities, observers should be thinking about the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the $1.6tr of outstanding student debt. -
The European Parliament’s proposals on the role of the securitization in fixing the European economy are set to nullify any benefit STS might grant to the synthetic market. With Europe’s economy at stake, the Parliament must decide whether ABS is a hindrance or a help.
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The coronavirus has been seen in some quarters as the final nail in the coffin for the long suffering UK retail sector. But having embraced e-commerce earlier than elsewhere, the sector may learn lessons from the crisis faster and emerge stronger, which means UK CMBS holders might not be in as bad a spot as they imagine.
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Kansas-based Palmer Square Capital Management has been one of the most active managers of the year, particularly in the pandemic era, with six CLOs priced in 2020. The firm, which manages $12.3bn in assets as of July 31, has specialized in static CLO issuance, and during the crisis was able to price three static deals in the US, as well as one in Europe. Chairman and CEO Chris Long spoke with GlobalCapital about the future of CLO market, the advantages of static deals in times of crisis and opportunities in Europe.
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It’s amazing how quickly the conversation around Avis has changed over the last few months. In April, investors worried that Avis would follow Hertz, its car rental rival, into bankruptcy by the end of 2020. But Avis’s performance in the second quarter and its recent success in the ABS market suggest it is in a much better position than its competitors to weather the recession.
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UK politicians should prepare for mortgage holidays becoming a political hot potato after borrowers who took payment holidays just-in-case realise that their financial well-being may not be as unscathed as they first anticipated.
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Many saw the US Federal Reserve’s decision to lend hundreds of billions of dollars to certain central banks at the height of the coronavirus crisis as pivotal in preventing further calamity in global markets. Brad Setser, senior fellow for international economics at the Council of Foreign Relations, gives a great deal of credit to the Fed for its forceful intervention. But if markets begin to see the US central bank as a global lender of last resort, there may be a greater risk of imprudent behaviour and more political tumult in the US.
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Rating agency reviews of CLOs are not resulting in mass downgrades in Europe. That has caused some to question what is going on given the damage the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns must surely have had on certain sectors of the economy that some CLOs are exposed to. Some transparency around ratings metrics would help soothe the angst.
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When mortgage payment holiday schemes start to run out at the end of the year, there looms a genuine risk of a wave of defaults. Allowing investors access to borrower-level data may be the only way banks can clean up their balance sheets and maintain lending to the real economy but it is fraught with hazard and must be deftly handled.
