Columbus Capital seeks $340m new RMBS funding
Columbus Capital is marketing its first residential mortgage-backed securitisation for 2014. The collateral is sourced from its wholesale home loan business, Origin Mortgage Management Services. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services have both assigned preliminary ratings to the transaction, backed by fully documented home loans, 42 per cent of which are for investment properties. The collateral is supported by lenders' mortgage insurance, which covers the full face value of all loans, accrued interest and "reasonable costs of enforcement", said S&P in a presale note. The preliminary ratings are as follows (Fitch/S&P): Class A notes: A$322 million AAA(exp)sf /AAA (sf) Class AB notes: $ 21 million AAA(exp)sf /AAA (sf) Class B notes: $ 7 million not rated /AA- (sf)The agencies also noted that fixed-to-floating interest-rate swaps were provided by ANZ and Westpac to hedge the mismatch between receipts from any fixed-rate mortgage loans and the variable-rate RMBS. The Origin brand and its $2.2 billion in assets were acquired from Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in September 2012 by Columbus Capital.According to a note from Fitch, the role of servicer was fully transitioned from ANZ to Columbus in November 2013, with loans successfully transferred from ANZ's internal system to Columbus' servicing system, along with the account numbers used to deposit borrower payments. Columbus capital is currently locked in a legal battle with Queensland State Home Loans, a subsidiary of non-bank originator, FirstMac, over management rights of a portfolio of mortgages, where Columbus sought to reduce the margin paid under the agreement between Firstmac's QSHL and ANZ. The QSHL case against Columbus, last seen wending its way through the NSW Supreme Court, is not the first such dispute that Columbus has initiated since taking over the Origin portfolio from ANZ. Early in 2013, a statement of claim was lodged by Pioneer Mortgage Services, also in the Supreme Court of NSW over monies allegedly owed, Pioneer was mortgage manager on 9 per cent of home loans in the Triton Trust. That matter was subsequently settled, "with no impact on the ratings of the Triton Trust", as Fitch reported in March 2013.The QSHL action is expected to follow the same path, with S&P stating late yesterday: "This matter doesn't affect our rating". Fitch declined to comment.