The good, the bad and the ugly
Last month saw US asset manager Pimco triple its holding of mortgage debt, UBS sell subprime loan positions worth $22 billion to a new fund managed by BlackRock, and HBOS get the first residential mortgage-backed securitisation issue in nearly a year off the ground. But, as William Rhode discovers, it's clear that investors want to know what's good and what's bad in the loan pools before they return in earnest to the mortgage markets
May was a good month. First came news that US asset manager BlackRock, which is 49.8% owned by Merrill Lynch and manages about $1,360 billion in assets, had bought a portfolio of subprime securities worth approximately $22 billion for an aggregate sale price of approximately $15 billion. The securities will go into a new fund that will be managed by BlackRock. The fund purchased the securities
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