Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's Upgrade C-BASS CBO I Ltd
Business Wire - June 24, 2003 11:15
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2003--C-BASS, the established leader in servicing and securitizing credit sensitive residential mortgages, today announced that both Fitch Ratings ("Fitch") and Standard & Poor's have upgraded the $50,000,000 class B notes of C-BASS CBO I Ltd. to AAA from AA+ (originally rated AA- at issuance). Fitch Ratings went on to upgrade the $21,000,000 class C notes to AAA from AA (originally rated A at issuance) and the $22,000,000 class D notes of C-BASS CBO I Ltd to AA+ from A (originally rated BBB at issuance). Additionally, Fitch and Standard & Poor's affirmed that the $108,436,608 class A-1 first priority senior secured floating-rate notes and the $12,322,342 class A-2 first priority senior secured fixed-rate notes rated AAA.
"We are delighted to be receiving our second upgrade on CBO I and our fourth overall on C-BASS CBO securitizations from both Fitch and Standard and Poor's. As a regular issuer in the marketplace, these rating actions attest to our program discipline," said Saul Sanders, Chief Operating Officer, C-BASS.
According to Fitch, "The upgrades reflect the increase in the credit enhancement of the rated notes and the excess interest available to service the interest payments on the rated notes as evidenced by the steady increase since closing of the overcollateralization and interest coverage. The ratings reflect the paydown of the class A notes as of June 3, 2003."
In their release, Standard and Poor's added "Updated loan-level information obtained for the RMBS assets within C-BASS CBO's collateral pool allowed the re-rating of these assets through the LEVELS model, and indicated that many of the assets had improved significantly in credit quality since the last rating action on May 2002."
C-BASS CBO I, which closed March 6, 2001, is a static-pool asset-backed collateralized bond obligation (CBO) managed by Credit-Based Servicing and Securitization LLC (C-BASS). C-BASS, headquartered in New York City, is a mortgage investment and servicing firm specializing in the acquisition, securitization, and servicing of credit sensitive single-family residential mortgage assets. Litton Loan Servicing, LP (Litton), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of C-BASS, has the highest servicer and special servicer ratings from Fitch and Standard & Poor's of 'RPS1' and'RSS1', respectively, and acts as servicer or special servicer on approximately 80% of the RMBS collateral in the pool. C-BASS CBO I, Ltd. represents the first of six static pool CBOs managed by C-BASS. The upgrade of C-BASS CBO follows the CBO's previous upgrade on April 22, 2002 as well as the upgrades of C-BASS CBO II on September 9, 2002 and C-BASS CBO III on March 14, 2003. C-BASS was also the first CDO Asset Manager rated by Fitch. C-BASS is a joint venture company among MGIC Investment Corporation (NYSE:MTG), Radian Group Inc. (NYSE:RDN), and C-BASS management. C-BASS specializes in the acquisition, servicing and securitization of credit-impaired residential mortgages. MGIC Investment Corporation, based in Milwaukee, WI is the parent of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC), and Radian Group Inc., based in Philadelphia, PA is the parent of Radian Guaranty Inc. |
