International Mortgage News

1010data, a provider of data warehouse and business intelligence for mortgage-backed securities market participants and others, has secured a $35 million equity investment from Norwest Venture Partners. The investment will allow 1010data to add to its marketing and sales efforts, according to Joel Kaplan, president, CEO and co-founder of 1010data. The investment gives NVP a minority stake in the company. In addition, Jon Kossow of NVP will join 1010data's board of directors. NVP is an investment firm that manages more than $3.7 billion in capital. It has offices in Palo Alto, Calif.; Mumbai and Bangaluru, India; and Herzelia, Israel.

ICP Capital has agreed to transfer its domestic and international capital markets businesses to PrinceRidge Holdings LP to create an international investment-banking boutique serving investors and issuers in the institutional fixed income markets. The combined firms will operate under the PrinceRidge Holdings name and ICAP will become a partner of PrinceRidge. ICP president and CEO Tom Priore will be advising on the combined firm's continuing international expansion as well as "strategic development initiatives" in the United States. The companies expect integration and closing to be completed in the second quarter, subject to regulatory approvals. PrinceRidge has been working on a capital markets effort targeting the underserved U.S. jumbo mortgage market.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of Canadian housing starts climbed to 196,700 units in February from 185,400 units in January, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Bob Dugan, chief economist at CMHC, said the volatile multifamily starts segment drove the increase. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban multifamily starts in Canada jumped 19.1% during the month while single-family starts inched up by just 0.5% during the period. The smaller rural start segment was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17,600 for the month.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. estimates Canadian housing starts will increase in 2010 to somewhere between 152,000 and 189,300 units, up from 149,081 units last year. Bob Dugan, CMHC's chief economist, said Canada's existing home market has become a sellers' market, in contrast to the beginning of 2009 when it was a buyers' market. "The relative lack of new listings for existing homes has pushed some of the demand into the new home market, which helps explain the forecast for higher housing starts activity in 2010," CMHC said. CMHC estimates existing home sales in Canada this year will be on the order of 455,350 to 509,900 units. "With an improved balance between demand and supply, the average [multiple listing service] price is expected to remain close to the average in the last quarter of 2009, for most of 2010, and then rise modestly in 2011," according to the CMHC. The CMHC estimates housing starts in 2011 will total somewhere between 156,400 to 205,600 units.

Distribution data show U.S. investors bought 65.8% of Fannie Mae's $4 billion two-year Benchmark Notes new issue on Friday, followed by Asian investors who bought 20.2%. European investors bought just 1.2%. The balance of investors hailed from other miscellaneous geographic regions. Fund managers bought 59.4%, central banks bought 33.1%, state/local governments bought 4.4%, insurance companies bought 2.5%, foundations/nonprofits bought 0.3%, commercial banks bought 0.2% and retail investors bought 0.1%. The new issue due April 4, 2012 (CUSIP 31398AH54) was priced at 99.959 to yield 1.020% at a spread of 20 basis points above the 0.875% Treasury due Feb. 29, 2012. The Benchmark Notes' payment dates are each April 4 and Oct. 4, starting this year. Barclays Capital Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., and Morgan Stanley & Co. are the joint lead managers. The co-managers include Blaylock Robert Van LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., FTN Financial Capital Markets, Jefferies & Company Inc. and UBS Securities LLC.

SecondMarket, a New York-based secondary market for illiquid assets such as private-label residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, has raised $15 million from Asian investors. The investors include Li Ka Shing Foundation, a charitable foundation founded by the Asian entrepreneur that is its namesake. The other investor is Dunearn Investments (Mauritius) Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Singapore investment company Temasek Holdings (Pte) Ltd. Each of the investors put $7.5 million into the New York company. Proceeds from the investment are slated for use in further scaling the SecondMarket's platform and infrastructure in preparation for its upcoming expansion into the Asian markets.

United Kingdom nonconforming residential mortgage-backed securities continued to show short-term stability for the most part in the latest month, according to Moody's Investors Service. Weighted average delinquencies were 19.7% in both December and November of 2009. This was up slightly from 19.4% six months prior and a marked increase from 13.7% in December 2008. Foreclosures, at 1.7%, were down from 2.0% in November and from 3.5% in December 2008. However, "sales of repossessed properties led to a further increase in losses," according to Moody's. Cumulative losses in December 2009 were 1.5%, up from 1.3% in November and 0.6% in December 2008.

Mortgage lender Embrace Home Loans, Newport, R.I., replaced its annual sales meeting this year with a Haiti benefit, according to the company. The company said its fundraising auction brought in $20,000 for a group called Partners with Haiti that supports Haitian orphanages. Employees donated items to the auction that included the use of a Florida vacation house for a week and use of an RV for a week, as well as sports and concert tickets. The Port-Au-Prince area of Haiti was devastated by a Jan. 12 earthquake.

The now-profitable UBS AG still faces at least a couple of challenges that date back to its involvement in the U.S. subprime mortgage space, but is seeing some funding diversification benefits from a new Swiss residential mortgage covered bond program. The company as a whole, which previously had been struggling with a chain of quarterly losses, generated a profit of about 1.2 billion Swiss francs ($1.1 billion) in the fourth quarter. Remaining mortgage-related challenges for the firm include exposures to monoline insurers through credit-default swaps of asset-backed securities. As of Dec. 31, the total fair value of CDS protection purchased from the monolines was $2.3 billion after cumulative credit valuation adjustments of $2.8 billion. Some of the related charges in this area did not flow through as profit or loss because of accounting rules for assets characterized as loans and receivables. The company in the fourth quarter also faced a suit in the Southern District of New York alleging securities fraud in connection with disclosures relating to its losses in certain areas that include subprime mortgage markets. It is seeking to have the claim dismissed. During the fiscal period the company said it was able to diversify funding by issuing the equivalent of 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($4.2 billion) in euro-denominated five- and 10-year covered bonds backed by Swiss residential mortgages.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of Canadian housing starts jumped to 186,300, suggesting an upward trend. Both single-family and multifamily starts during the month saw increases similar to December's, according to Bob Dugan, chief economist at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Final actual starts figures that came in for 2009 also suggested a trend toward recovery, according to the CMHC.