Take Notes

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 St...

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...

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.

We complete our coverage on European covered bonds with the Danish market, the largest in the world. Covered bonds analyst Casper Andersen returns with host Tom Schopflocher to provide insights into this market, including how its framework differs from others, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ESG.

Our hosts Tom Schopflocher and James Manzi give an update on U.S. structured finance issuance. Issuance returned to form in September, reaching $54 billion, the highest monthly total so far in the year. While 2020 year-to-date issuance is still down 21% year over year, it looks like the annual total will eclipse our revised midyear forecast.

We continue with our look at local covered bond markets, this time in Sweden. Covered bonds analyst Casper Andersen returns with host Tom Schopflocher to provide insights into this relatively young but large market, including how the recently approved European Covered Bond Framework could affect liquidity risk and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Head of S&P Global Ratings EMEA Structured Finance Research Andrew South joins host Tom to recap our third annual European Structured Finance Conference. We touch on key takeaways from the conference such as what's driving low issuance volumes, how the securitization markets have fared since COVID-19 began, and what the outlook could look like going forward.

Analysts Anne Cosgrove, Alex Gombach, and Santos Souffront join our host Tom to discuss U.S. public finance health care variable-rate demand obligations (VRDOs). We first introduce and detail what standby bond purchase agreement (SBPA)-backed VRDOs are and how we rate them. We then look at how not-for-profit health care providers can turn to this form of financing to help offset their significant...

Host Tom Schopflocher talks to credit analyst Casper Andersen about the current state of German covered bonds, or Pfandbriefe. Germany has the second-largest covered bond market and the largest euro benchmark market, with outstanding issuances totaling €355 billion in 2020. German covered bonds should be able to withstand the challenges created by COVID-19, and despite little room for change, new...

In our first episode back, hosts Tom Schopflocher and James Manzi discuss how COVID-19 has hampered structured finance issuance levels across the globe, leading us to trim our 2020 forecast by a quarter to $830 billion—and breaking the annual streak of $1 trillion global issuance.

Hosts Tom and Jim cover hot topics from this year's SFVegas. Matt Mitchell joins to discuss ESG, which remains a challenge in the structured finance markets due to the lack of data standardization, as well as how the importance of individual E, S, and G factors varies between issuers and investors.

Hosts Tom Schopflocher and Jim Manzi discuss our expectation of another $1 trillion-plus in issuance volume for Global Structured Finance in 2020, as well as our view of some factors that could affect the market in the coming year.

Hosts Tom Schopflocher and Jim Manzi take a deeper look at the non-QM market, which has been doubling and then some every year for the past few years. With about $20 billion+ in issuance, we explore borrower and loan characteristics, as well as what differentiates non-QM from subprime loans.

We're following up on our previous covered bonds episode with a discussion on the new flavor of environmental- and social-themed covered bonds on the rise. Our host Tom and analysts Corinne Bendersky and Adriano Rossi touch on how the capital market for these particular sustainable bonds is developing, the nature of the collateral backing these bonds, and how we measure the social impact. We also...

ESG is everywhere lately, but how does it fit into structured finance? We've long considered ESG in our analysis, but when one of the three becomes material enough to a transaction's ability to make payments, it could be an "ESG credit factor." Ildi Szilank and Matt Mitchell join us to discuss how relevant ESG credit factors are to structured finance ratings and examples ESG-related events in the...

It's Take Notes' first anniversary! We head back to ABS East, where S&P Global Ratings hosted and attended a variety of panels, and cover the most-discussed topics, including whole business securitizations, the non-QM mortgage market, LIBOR, ESG, and the future of blockchain in securitization.

ABS Senior Director John Anglim joins the podcast to demystify U.S. student loans. We dive into a breakdown of the 45 million borrowers who own the $1.6 trillion+ debt burden. We then debate whether or not student loan forgiveness is a viable long-term solution, or if it's just merely a band aid for a larger systemic issue with education costs.

They use a commercial mortgage underwriting metric, but they're popping up in the residential space and are QM-exempt--so what exactly are DSCR loans? RMBS analyst Jeremy Schneider returns to Take Notes to discuss the housing, demographic, and securitization trends that suggest DSCR loans are on the rise.

Not only do investors have to master the collateral in a CLO transaction, they have to master its documentation as well. Stephen Anderberg, Tim Walsh, and Jeff Burton from the CLO team discuss the negotiations between equityholders, prospective 'AAA' noteholders, and the CLO manager--which are played out in these documents--over structuring a deal.

Host Tom Schopflocher and Andy South discuss S&P Global Ratings' second European SF conference in London, including overall market sentiment, issuance outlooks and downside risks, central bank funding schemes, and global issues like trade tensions and Brexit.

Marketplace—or P2P—lending has been taking off since the recession. Host Tom Schopflocher talks to credit analyst Doug Paterson about how this market has grown via new technologies, regulations across different jurisdictions, and our rating considerations.

We're on the road again—this time to Australia! Host Tom Schopflocher and credit analyst Erin Kitson discuss economic conditions, the Australian mortgage market, and potential ratings implications for RMBS.

Take Notes is back and brighter than ever! We're talking solar assets, including power purchase agreements versus PACE and how financing works for different types of obligors, as well as how we rate these deals under our new methodology.

Host Tom Schopflocher and Andy South discuss AFME and IMN's 23rd global ABS conference, touching on the key themes of regulation, especially in Europe, macro credit risk, and what first-quarter issuance trends portend for the rest of 2019.