Secondary Market

As part of its expansion into the fixed income, high yield, and leveraged finance market, New York-based global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. announced several new hires last week. Matthew Zolin, Lori Samuels, and Erin Andrews all joined the firm from Chapdelaine Credit Partners. Zolin was named managing director of high yield trading, Samuels was hired as managing director of credit product, and Andrews joined the firm as a senior loan trader.

Fannie Mae reported a net loss of $8.7 billion for the first three months of this year, which company executives say was primarily driven by a decline in home prices during the quarter. Fannie's first-quarter shortfall actually narrowed compared to a year earlier, when the company reported a loss of $13 billion. The GSE has requested another $8.5 billion in taxpayer funds from Treasury, bringing its total draws to nearly $100 billion. Fannie Mae acquired 53,549 single-family REO properties through foreclosure in the first quarter.

Berkadia Commercial Mortgage has added three key executives to its ranks within the last few weeks. Industry veteran Luther Peacock has joined the company as chief risk officer. Stephannie Mower has been named managing director and will lead the company's newly launched Investment Client Services business. And Mortgage banker Mike Duggan has joined Berkadia's St. Louis office, which is the center of operations for its HUD and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) platform.

The nation's second largest mortgage company reported Wednesday that it pulled in net income of $676 million during the first three months of this year. Freddie Mac closed the quarter with positive net worth of $1.2 billion. As a result, no additional funding from Treasury was required for the first quarter of 2011. It's the first time since the fourth quarter of 2009 that the company has not needed to draw on taxpayer support. REO dispositions reached record levels in the first quarter with approximately 30,000 homes sold.

After three consecutive months in which the delinquency rate on loans held in U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) showed signs of leveling off, the rate re-accelerated in April, Trepp LLC reported Wednesday. The New York-based research firm says the percentage of loans 30-plus days delinquent, in foreclosure, or REO climbed 23 basis points last month to hit 9.65 percent. That number is, once again, the highest reading in the history of the CMBS market.

Default management and residential valuation provider Integrated Asset Services, LLC (IAS) has named former Lehman Brothers executive Paul E. Sveen as its new CEO. A 25-year veteran of the industry, Sveen spent 19 years with Lehman, where he held executive leadership roles in the firm's structured finance and securitization businesses, and at Aurora Loan Services, Lehman's largest residential mortgage company.

Clayton Holdings has partnered with MBSData to provide loan-level data risk identification analytics and reporting solutions to fixed-income-mortgage investors. According to a statement from the two companies, their combined technology platform is designed to help investors manage residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) risk more effectively. The new offering will cover 98 percent of the active deal universe of private-label RMBS.

The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and its mortgage unit, claiming that Germany's largest bank ""repeatedly lied"" to get into a program to select mortgages to be insured by FHA against default. Once part of the program, U.S. authorities say Deutsche Bank ""recklessly"" selected mortgages that violated the program rules ""in blatant disregard"" of whether borrowers could make their mortgage payments. The U.S. government is seeking $1 billion in damages and penalties.

The operations of MDA DataQuick, MDA Lending Solutions, and MDA MindBox have been integrated, effective May 2. The private investment firm TPG Capital purchased the three companies in January. The resulting combined company, which operates under the name DataQuick and headquarters in California, delivers real estate information solutions powered by data, analytics, and advanced decisioning to lenders, servicers, real estate companies, and secondary market investors.

After two years of no issuance, the credit quality of commercial-mortgage backed securities (CMBS) issued post recession has been strong, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service. Since issuance resumed in 2010, Moody's has rated eight ""new generation"" or CMBS 2.0 conduit deals, and the company says contrary to some market reports, current underwriting is vastly improved compared to four years ago. As the credit cycle continues, however, the ratings agency expects the leverage of the loans in transactions to increase.