AMP mortgage bonds pricey
Last week produced two issues of residential mortgage-backed securities - a rather rare class these days - with the second of these issues, from AMP Bank, faring worse than the RMBS sold by Westpac earlier in the week.AMP Bank priced its latest issue of RMBS on Friday, paying 155 basis points over the bank bill swap rate for the top tranche. Earlier last week, Westpac paid 140 basis points over swap for the A$1.06 billion top tranche of its RMBS issue, Series 2012-1 WST Trust.AMP Bank's Progress 2012-1 Trust was upsized from $500 million to $650 million. The $602.7 million of Class A notes, which have a weighted average life of 3.4 years and an expected AAA rating, were priced at 155 basis points over swap.Westpac's Class A notes have a weighted average life of three years, compared with 3.4 years for AMP's Class A notes. The difference in tenor would account for some of the wider margin.AMP's $31.3 million of Class AB notes, with a weighted average life of 5.9 years and an expected AAA rating, were priced at 285 basis points over the swap rate.The $14.3 million of Class BA notes, with a weighted average life of 5.6 years and an expected AA- rating, were priced at 425 basis points over swap.Pricing on the $1.63 million of Class B2 notes was not disclosed.AMP said 14 investors participated in the issue - eight of them real money investors.The Australia Office of Financial Management bought $195.6 million of the Class A notes and $30.8 million of the Class AB notes.Fitch Ratings also published ratings for Bella Trust No.2 Series 2012-1, a private placement of asset-backed securities notes, undertaken by Capital Finance AustraliaThe transaction comprised US$353.5 million of an AAA-rated top tranche and a further five tranches. No pricing was disclosed.This private placement follows one undertaken by PUMA Masterfund S-10 at the end of April.