Take Notes

Recent data regarding consumer credit--especially auto ABS collateral data--are showing signs of deteriorating performance. Moreover, we've seen some indication that consumer distress is spreading to higher credit score and income cohorts, despite a relatively low unemployment rate. An unforeseen increase in the unemployment rate over our base case could lead to further distress for consumers who are already facing a myriad of financial challenges. We deep dive into the data and detail more of our observations and what we're attributing this to. Related Article: Inflation and Affordability Challenges Remain For Consumers Despite Low Unemployment

We discuss the cross-sector impact of the Los Angeles wildfires on California's property insurance, housing finance, and state creditworthiness. As the wildfires are expected to result in substantial losses for insurers, we discuss how carriers are expected to raise rates and/or reduce coverage options in California and other at-risk areas; and how the FAIR Plan, an insurer of last resort, could exacerbate that. We also detail how the fires could cause downward pressure on home prices in California's housing market. Finally, we discuss how the rising insurance costs and mounting affordability challenges could weigh on the creditworthiness of the state of California over time

Since CLO ETFs launched in late 2020, the investing landscape has changed, as retail investors can now access securities previously available only to institutional buyers. Driven by strong investor demand, CLO ETFs have injected new liquidity into CLO primary and secondary markets. We discuss what's fueling the rise of the CLO ETF sector, its portfolio compositions and purchasing activities, and the extent to which these ETFs can impact CLO tranche pricing under certain economic conditions. Related Article: ABS Frontiers: How The Burgeoning CLO ETF Sector Could Impact The Broader CLO Market

We're joined by esoteric ABS credit analyst Christine Dalton to do a deep dive on the Nov. 4, 2024, downgrade of TGIF Funding LLC's series 2017-1 class A-2. We look back at the deteriorating operating performance of TGI Friday's casual dining restaurants, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased securitization expenses following the manager transition a (manger termination event was declared on Sept. 5, 2024), potential disruption stemming from TGI Friday's Inc.'s bankruptcy filing on Nov. 2, 2024, and the virtual certainty of a payment default over the next 12 months.

After two years of muted issuance, the U.S. BSL #CLO market has roared back to life, with about $165 billion in issuance to date. We're joined by CLO Sector Lead Stephen Anderberg to discuss what's driving this active market (e.g., benign credit outlook and continuing strong demand for high-quality floating-rate assets), where we think the market will end up at the end of the year, and the status of refinancings and resets, specifically. Leveraged Finance Sector Lead Minesh Patel also joins us to discuss the factors driving our generally positive view of Corporate credit performance over the next 6-12 months (e.g., policy interest rate normalization to help stick a soft landing, generally healthy balance sheets, etc.).

We're joined by analyst Casper Andersen to provide updates on the Norwegian, Finnish, and Dutch covered bonds markets, and Icelandic jurisdictional support. We discuss the current housing markets and economic growth for Norway, Finland, and Netherlands and the impact on their respective covered bond markets. We also discuss issuance demand and trends in the Dutch covered bond market and revisions to certain jurisdictional support assessments in our criteria (specifically Iceland). Related Articles: Covered Bonds In New Markets: Issuance Holds Up In 2024 Global Covered Bond Insights Q2 2024: Strong Start To The Year For Issuance Covered Bonds Primer Norwegian And Finnish Covered Bond Market Insights 2024

For our first episode in 2024, our host, Tom Schopflocher, is joined by Cian Chandler, S&P Global Ratings' Global Structured Finance Chief Analytical Officer, to introduce our “ABS Frontiers” article series. Throughout this year, these informative commentaries will explore sectors that are somewhat “out of the ordinary,” which, in addition to being interesting and possibly not broadly understood by the market, show potential for growth in origination and securitization. Some asset classes we've published on so far include C-PACE, music royalties, private credit funds, and bridging loan RMBS. In the episode, we discuss our reasons for embarking on this article series, which include providing market insight based on what we are seeing and what may come down the line. Click on the link below to access the series: ABS Frontiers Series

In 2022, European covered bond issuance reached levels unseen since 2011, with the French and German markets leading the way. We're joined by analysts Denitsa Carouget and Casper Andersen to discuss both of those markets. We provide overviews of both French and German covered bond markets, including relevant legal frameworks and recent market developments. We also go into how both markets are performing in “higher-for-longer” interest rate environments and discuss our forward-looking outlooks. Related Articles: French Covered Bond Market Insights 2023 German Covered Bond Market Insights 2023

We're joined by analyst Ana Lai and co-host Jim Manzi to discuss the global office sector's uneven recovery post-pandemic. We dive into the vacancy rates in different regions around the world, pricing trends for the office sector in a higher-for-longer" interest rate environment, and office performance in relation to the CMBS market. We also discuss distributions of North American REIT debt maturities across commercial real estate sectors, especially for the office sector, and what that means for the market. Finally, we touch on our outlook for the U.S. office market going forward. Related Articles: SLIDES: Uneven Global Office Recovery Is Squeezing Credit Quality

Analysts Daniel Hu, Rebecca Mun, and Abhijit Pawar join us to discuss U.S. and European BSL CLOs. First, we give a recap of a CLO panel at a recent S&P Global Ratings-hosted European Structured Finance conference, "Navigating Challenges; Seeking Opportunities," where amendments and extensions were a focus. We then deep dive into a comparative overview of U.S. and European BSL CLOs, going into specific similarities and nuances between CLOs from both markets.

On July 28, 2023, S&P Global Ratings assigned its 'AAA (sf)' rating to the class A notes of Anyihua 2023 Phase III Personal Consumption Loan Asset Backed Securities, the first 'AAA (sf)' rating assigned by an international ratings agency to a securitization transaction in China backed by consumer finance assets. Analyst Andrea Lin joins up to discuss the analysis that went behind rating this transaction. We also discuss our outlook for China's consumer loan ABS sector as a whole.

We're joined by credit analysts Casper Andersen to discuss how covered bonds could ease the pain in European commercial real estate (CRE), which has been struggling with inflation and rising interest rates. First, we go into the price trends of different CRE segments. We touch on covered bond rating performance. Finally, we talk about the potential for covered bond funding, which varies significantly depending on the covered bond issuer and jurisdiction, and green covered bonds, which may offer a potential source for further CRE funding.

We're joined by credit analysts Andrew South and Casper Andersen to discuss covered bonds in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Sweden has been experiencing rapidly rising consumer prices at a rate not seen in decades. Norway and Finland have been facing rising interest rates, which has had a dampening effect on property price. We talk about how the covered bond markets in all three jurisdictions have been faring under these conditions.

We're joined by credit analysts Dev Vithani, Joshua Saunders, and Maxime Pontois to discuss some of the alternative financing arrangements that are on an uptick in the asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) sectors in U.S. and EMEA and how they support issuance growth. We also discuss the impact of the recent events in the banking sector on the U.S. and EMEA ABCP markets. And finally, we go into our expectations for global issuance totals for this year.

We're joined by CLO Sector Lead Stephen Anderberg and credit analyst Daniel Hu to discuss how rising U.S. broadly syndicated loan (BSL) CLO 'CCC' baskets could affect junior overcollateralization (O/C) test cushions. We detail how the mechanics of CLO O/C tests work and why the tests themselves matter. Then we deep dive into the scenario analysis we undertook to look at how the junior O/C test cushions could be affected by various hypothetical scenarios of rising 'CCC' baskets. Related Articles: Scenario Analysis: How Rising U.S. BSL CLO 'CCC' Baskets Could Affect Junior Overcollateralization Test Cushions Interactive dashboard

We're joined by Mathias Herzog to discuss how the risk for the commercial real estate (CRE) loans we monitor in European CMBS has shifted to refinancing risk from term risk due to rising interest rates. We touch on default and refinancing risk on some of the loans in our surveillance book that are about to mature, as well as what would happen if a loan defaulted. We also break down the performance outlook of European CMBS deals by sectors.

Our host, Tom Schopflocher, is joined by Hong Kong-based lead analyst Andrea Lin to discuss our 2023 securitization outlook for China. We begin by recapping the broad Structured Finance issuance trends we are seeing in China and what's driving them. We then go into detail on issuance trends in specific asset classes, such as RMBS, auto ABS, and consumer loan ABS.

Our host, Tom Schopflocher, is joined by U.S. RMBS Sector Lead Jeremy Schneider discuss our 2023 U.S. residential mortgage and housing outlook. With the U.S. housing and mortgage market slowdowns expected to continue in 2023, we dig into some historical perspectives that are comparable to our current economic situation for clues on how home prices may behave this year at the national and regional levels. We also discuss our issuance forecasts by subsector, our view of collateral performance, and our views on what support for investment properties might look like in the coming year, among other credit themes. Related Articles: 2023 U.S. Residential Mortgage And Housing Outlook: Navigaing A Softening Market

Our hosts Tom Schopflocher and James Manzi get together to discuss our 2023 global structured finance outlook. Global structured finance issuance fell about 29% in 2022, and the declines were generally uniform in the largest global markets as high inflation, volatile interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty kept issuers on the sidelines. We expect these conditions to continue to hamper issuance. Our 2023 global issuance forecast is down about 7% year-over-year. Related Articles: Global Structured Finance 2023 Outlook 2023 Residential Mortgage And Housing Outlook: Navigating A Softening Market European Structured Finance Outlook 2023: Close To The Edge China Structured Finance Outlook 2023: Issuance Likely To Slowly Stir 2023 Structured Finance Outlook: Australia And New Zealand

Expanding on our covered bond market coverage, Casper Andersen joins us to provide some insights into the Danish and German markets, which are the largest and second-largest in Europe, respectively. We give an overview of each market's adopted legal frameworks, key characteristics, and collateral securing their covered pools. We also discuss how inflation and mortgage markets affect these covered bond markets.

We're joined by Structured Finance analyst Christine Dalton, who gives her insights into the overall U.S. whole business securitization (WBS) sector, and by Corporates analyst Sarah Wyeth, who goes in depth on quick-service restaurants (which make up approximately 75% of our outstanding rated WBS transactions). We discuss some notable trends and potential credit events that we're monitoring in the WBS sector currently and for the upcoming year. Related Articles: U.S. Corporate Securitization Newsletter December 2022

We're joined by our CLO team members Stephen Anderberg, Catherine Rautenkranz, William Sweatt, and Jeffrey Burton to discuss the evolving nature of U.S. CLO document provisions. A number of the recent developments in indenture provisions are geared towards increasing CLO manager flexibility, while others are responses to market and regulatory changes. We do a deep dive on these key changes and how they could potentially affect noteholders. Related Articles: Par Wars: U.S. CLO Document Provisions Evolve To Provide Managers More Flexibility

We're joined by nontraditional ABS Analysts Deborah Newman and Rajesh Subramanian, as well Kapil Jain from Structured Finance Methodologies, who discuss our request for comment (RFC) for proposed updates to our global aircraft ABS criteria. We review some of the proposed changes, the implications in terms of ratings impact, and the next steps in the process. Related Article: Request For Comment - Global Aircraft ABS: Methodology And Assumptions

In this week's episode of Take Notes, hosts Tom Schopflocher and Jim Manzi discuss their recently published chartbook: U.S. Structured Finance Snapshot: The Health Of U.S. Consumers. Topics include U.S. macroeconomic conditions, consumer ABS, housing/RMBS, and non-agency multifamily CMBS, and how the trends in asset classes reflect the health of U.S. consumers. Related Article: U.S. Structured Finance Snapshot: The Health Of U.S. Consumers

Following the implementation of the EU Covered Bond Directive, analysts Casper Andersen and Ana Galdo join us this week to discuss the journey European covered bonds have been on to harmonize. We go over some key elements of the legislation, recap the harmonization timeline so far, and discuss what the directive means for covered bonds going forward. Related Articles: European Covered Bonds Reach Harmonization Milestone As The Journey Continues, July 12, 2022 Spanish Covered Bonds: Harmonization Achieved Through Royal Decree Law, July 13, 2022

With the European commercial real estate market facing asset price inflation risks, analyst Mathias Herzog joins us this week to discuss the region's CMBS performance. We discuss key European market trends and how they impact our ratings, noting that generally, ratings will be lower on new transactions with the same leverage as measured by the underlying assets' market value. For existing ratings, there will be no change from these developments alone. We also touch on our outlooks for certain European CMBS subsectors. Related Article: Asset Price Risks: How Safe Is European CMBS Performance In The Face Of Rising Real Estate Values?

Credit analyst Erin Kitson joins us this week to discuss the Australian RMBS sector's likely resilience to rising interest rates in the country due to inflationary pressures. We do deep dives on a scenario analysis we performed to explore borrower sensitivity to rising interest rates, the fixed-rate phenomenon in the sector, property prices, unemployment, geographic diversity, and ratings performance. Related Article: Monetary Tightening To Test Australian RMBS

We're joined by Chris Plumb and Jie Liang to discuss Private Equity CFOs, including the recent Astrea 7 transaction. Disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic led to temporary performance fluctuations in the outstanding Astrea transactions we rate. Rising rates and market volatility may affect returns on the underlying private equity assets in the near term. Related Article - Presale: Astrea 7 Pte. Ltd.

Our host, Jim Manzi, is joined by U.S. CLO sector lead Stephen Anderberg, Director Daniel Hu, and research analyst Evan Gunter to do a deep dive into the history of U.S. CLO defaults. Of the 16,000+ CLO tranches that we have rated since the mid-late 1990s, there have been 50 that defaulted. We go over some notable observations and trends (e.g., rating categories, timings, etc.) in our historical data. We also discuss how we look at current tranches that are candidates for a potential default, and what a typical "path to default" might look like. Related Article - CLO Spotlight: U.S. CLO Defaults As Of March 17, 2022

We're joined by Doug Paterson to discuss buy now, pay later (BNPL) lending, a form of consumer credit where goods and services are paid for in installments over a period typically less than 12 months, instead of being paid for in full at the time of purchase. We discuss how BNPL lending has evolved from traditional consumer financing; the market's rapid 60%-70% annual growth and the stricter regulation coming; and the regulatory and operational risks, among others, that we would consider if we were to rate a BNPL-backed securitization in Europe. Related Article - Buy Now, Pay Later Securitizations: What Are The Risks?

Host Tom Schopflocher and S&P Global Ratings analyst Amy Martin discuss the U.S. auto loan ABS market, which roared back to life in 2021 with issuance at the highest level since 2005. Learn about vintage-specific performance trends, the relationship between unemployment and losses, loan-term trends, and more. Related Articles: U.S. Auto Loan ABS Tracker: Full Year And December 2021 Performance Global Structured Finance 2022 Outlook

Expanding on our covered bond market coverage, Casper Andersen joins us to provide some insights into the growing Norwegian And Finnish markets, which are the 10th- and 14-largest in Europe, respectively. We give an overview of each market's adopted legal frameworks, key characteristics, and collateral securing their covered pools. We also give our ratings outlooks for each market. Related Article: Norwegian And Finnish Covered Bond Market Insights 2022

Our Latin American team joins us this week to discuss the 2022 outlook for the Latin American Structured Finance market. We expect flat issuance relative to last year and stable collateral performance, continuing the trends from 2021. We go into more detail about the major regional markets and asset classes that we expect will be most active in the coming year, as well as delve into the major risk factors we identified across the market. Related Article - Latin America Structured Finance Outlook 2022: Expectations Are For Flat Issuance And Stable Collateral Performance

We're joined by credit analysts Antonio Farina and Marta Escutia to discuss sustainable covered bond market, which has been expanding over the last couple of years. Overall, we view the lack of supply, rather than demand, is constraining further growth in sustainable issuance. We discuss in detail the different factors contributing to this lack of supply. We also discuss our outlook for the market going forward.

Host Tom Schopflocher discusses the economic factors supporting the U.S. housing market and what could happen to the record high pace of home price appreciation should they change course. Based on these factors, we carried out a statistical study to determine the likelihood of a sudden correction in home prices. We also ran a scenario analysis to understand how a sharp drop in home prices might impact ratings of certain U.S. non-agency RMBS.

Credit analyst Doug Paterson joins us this week to discuss the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) in European auto ABS transactions as the transition to EVs from internal combustion ones is expected to accelerate. We discuss some of the drivers behind the transition, price depreciation of EVs and how it affects our analysis of auto ABS deals, and our thoughts on the share of EVs in securitized pools increasing and the possibility of a "green" auto deal.

Director Jay Srivats joins our host Tom Schopflocher this week to give an update on the U.S. timeshare securitization sector. We discuss the consolidation trends in the sector this year and their impact on issuance volume, the adjustments to our base-case default assumptions in our rating analysis in response to the pandemic, and the sector's overall stable ratings performance despite pandemic-related increases in deferrals and delinquencies.

Sector Lead Casper Andersen and analyst Natalie Swiderek join us this week to give an overview of the 2021 German, Swedish, and Danish covered bond markets, the three largest in Europe. We explore some of the differences between the regional markets and deep dive into the current trends in each market.

Credit analyst Irina Penkina joins us to discuss the possible impact LIBOR replacement could have on our U.K. RMBS ratings. We deep dive into different types of scenario analysis we developed to look at the patterns in the upcoming LIBOR transition and the resulting amended terms that could trigger a negative rating action on U.K. RMBS transactions, and more.

RMBS Sector Lead Jeremy Schneider joins us this week to discuss how U.S. home prices have made significant gains recently, leading to a shift in the U.S. housing market's to being overvalued. We further discuss how the overvaluation has led us to update the home value assessments we use when evaluating mortgage pools backing certain RMBS.

We're joined by Jose Coballasi and Antonio Zellek to discuss the current state of Structured Finance in Latin America. We touch on Latin America's overall ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic; the most relevant asset classes in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico; ratings performance; and our forward-looking views on issuance in the region. We also detail Fintech's increasing role in the Latin American market.

We're joined by Matt Mitchell to discuss how Structured Finance securitizations prepare against cyber risks. We discuss how a securitization could be vulnerable to a cyberattack, the structural features that are available to mitigate and manage the cyberattack, how we account for cyber risk in our rating analysis, and how our ratings could be affected

This time, Casper Anderson joins us to discuss commercial real estate (CRE) in covered bonds. Is CRE in covered bonds worth the risk? We do a deep dive into that question by looking at the divergence of different CRE asset performances due to the pandemic, their exposures in different jurisdictions, the outlooks for CRE in Europe, and more.

Our host Tom Schopflocher is joined by analyst Casper Anderson to discuss covered bonds; this time it's the EU directive, which is now on its way to becoming law in all EU countries. The EU directive is the first real attempt at establishing a pan-European standard for covered bonds (as well as an attempt at strengthening the EU capitals market union). We discuss how the law seeks to establish that standard across the EU, some of the hold ups some countries are having in trying to enact this law, as well as some of the important legal differences that still exist between jurisdictions.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has become even more prevalent since our last episode on the subject on Oct. 17, 2019. Kate Scanlin and Matt Mitchell join us this time to discuss our recently introduced ESG industry report cards, which help explain the influence ESG credit factors have on our credit rating analysis for specific Structured Finance sectors.

Host Tom Schopflocher speaks with credit analyst Alastair Bigley on key developments in the European RMBS market for first-quarter 2021. Performance has remained stable overall due to government support, with some deviation by country. Prepayments had started to increase again at the end of last year, but may slow as more borrowers move to fixed-rate products.

Although nonperforming loans (NPLs) are toxic, there is a market for securitizing NPLs. We're joined by analyst Fabio Alderotti this week to discuss the trends we are seeing in the southern European NPL market, and what we expect to see from that market in the future. We also deep dive into the different factors we consider in our rating analysis of NPL securitizations.

Host Tom Schopflocher is joined by Senior Director John Detweiler to discuss the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) recent confirmation of the dates for the future cessation or loss of representativeness of global London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) benchmarks. We weigh in on what the date confirmations' immediate impact could be for our ratings, and what cessation could mean overall for the Structured Finance market when it becomes effective.

Latin American Sector Lead Jose Coballasi joins host Tom Schopflocher to discuss our 2021 Latin American Structured Finance outlook. While collateral performance improved in 2020, the surge in COVID-19 cases has led to increased restrictive measures in several countries in the region, and a very challenging economic environment. Although these conditions remain headwinds going into 2021, we expect issuance to increase modestly and for most asset classes to have stable ratings performance. We discuss our view of specific sectors and regions.

Host Tom Schopflocher is joined by credit analysts Jie Liang and James Yu in a discussion about private equity collateralized fund obligations (CFOs). First, we provide a general background of what private equity CFOs are. Then, through the lens of the recent Astrea VI transaction, we discuss how we treat these types of deals in our analysis, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop.

In our first episode of the year, hosts Tom Schopflocher and James Manzi recap the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on 2020 performance, and then summarize S&P Global Ratings' 2021 outlooks and issuance forecasts for Structured Finance sectors by region.