Liberty Financial prices an upsized A$1.5bn RMBS deal
Liberty Financial has priced a A$1.5 billion RMBS issue, the Liberty Series 2018-1. This transaction was the diversified finance provider's forty-third public term securitisation in Australia, but its first for 2018. In a media statement confirming the pricing of the top-rated tranches, Liberty said this transaction was the largest RMBS deal by any Australasian issuer to be backed by a mixed pool of prime and non-prime mortgages.The issuer stated that due to strong investor demand across all offered tranches, the transaction was upsized from a launch volume of $700 million to $1.5 billion. The deal included a €83.4 million tranche to accommodate strong demand for Australian collateral from European investors.Pricing details, as disclosed by Liberty:• The A$150.0 million Class A1a notes, to be rated Aaa(sf)/AAAsf by Moody's/Fitch, with a weighted average life of about 0.2 years, priced at a margin of 65 basis points over one month BBSW.• The A$691.5 million Class A1b notes, to be rated Aaa(sf)/AAAsf, with a weighted average life of about 2.1 years, priced at a margin of 125 bps over one month BBSW.• The €83.4 million Class A1c notes, to be rated Aaa(sf)/AAAsf, with a weighted average life of about 2.1 years, priced at a margin of 50 bps over three month EURIBOR.• The A$372.0 million Class A2 notes, to be rated Aaa(sf)/AAAsf, with a weighted average life of about 3.5 years, priced at a margin of 165 bps over one month BBSW.The pricing of the Class B, C, D, E and F notes, expected to be rated by Moody's as Aa2(sf), A2(sf), Baa2(sf), Ba2(sf) and B2(sf), respectively, was not disclosed.Liberty is Australia's only investment grade rated non-bank issuer (rated BBB- with a "stable" outlook by Standard & Poors). Last year it raised about A$5 billion from nine mortgage-backed and asset-backed securitisations.Commonwealth Bank of Australia was the sole arranger and also a joint lead manager, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Euro Notes only), Deutsche Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corporation.