Just a few blissful years ago, one would never think of originators getting wound up or sellers being liquidated. In the world of structured finance, the possibilities of that doomsday scenario were remote, unthinkable and above all, no one wanted to discuss its potential occurrence.

That changed with the Lehman collapse and with that, a domino effect ensued.

Of course, that’s not to say that the industry never thought of what would happen in that unlikely occurrence and the transaction documents do provide for some sort of crisis resolution. Despite the existence of clauses to deal with bankrupt originators, these would prove to be tedious and impractical at best and totally unworkable at worst.
Continue Reading Practical implications of insolvent originators

Following the boom years of securitisation origination and the well documented post-Lehman troubles securitisation transactions are now coming to the end of their life cycles as assets default, are re-financed or bought back by originators. However, there are typically numerous legal and accounting costs – and possibly taxes – associated with unwinding a securitisation such as releasing security, terminating the legal agreements and liquidating the issuer (and any related entities such as the SPV holding companies and SPV holders of post-enforcement call options). The fact that, usually, little thought was given at the outset of a transaction as to how such costs should be allocated, begs the question “who pays”?
Continue Reading Winding up securitisation issuers: who pays?