FleetPartners claims 'Australian first' car lease securitisation

Vehicle finance firm FleetPartners yesterday priced its second securitisation of Australian assets in a transaction it claimed was "the first motor vehicle operating lease [asset-backed securitisation] issuance in the Australian market" and the first to include exposure to residual value of motor vehicle operating leases.  

The transaction, to be known as FP Turbo Series 2014-1 Trust, comprised A$277 million of notes, most of which were rated by Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Australia.  The collateral consists of a pool of operating, finance and novated leases.

The company and its bankers said the transaction "attracted strong interest from investors across all offered tranches", which led to the deal being upsized from $200 million to $277 million, with even the larger offering being "materially oversubscribed", according to a company announcement.
 
Garry McLennan, FleetPartners' chief financial officer, said; "This securitisation is an important step in ... enabling FleetPartners to diversify its funding sources."

Westpac was arranger for the transaction, and also one of the joint lead managers along with ANZ and NAB.

The A$200.8 million Class A notes were rated Aaa (sf)/AAA sf by Moody's and Fitch, respectively, and have a weighted average life of about 0.9 years. These notes were priced at a margin of 90 basis points over one month BBSW.

The A$16.6 million Class A notes, (Aa2 (sf)/AA sf) have a weighted average life of about 1.7 years, and were priced at 170 bps over one month BBSW.

The pricing of the Class C (A2 (sf)/A sf), Class D (Baa2 (sf)/NR), Class E (Ba1 (sf)/NR) and Class F notes (B1 (sf)/NR), was not disclosed.

The issuer retained $13.9 million in unrated Seller Notes.

The transaction will settle by 5 December 2014.