Press Release

DBRS Rates MBSCAT 1 Fondo de Titulización de Activos

RMBS
March 07, 2011

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS) has today assigned a final rating of “A” (sf) to the Series A notes issued by MBSCAT 1 Fondo de Titulización de Activos (MBSCAT 1 F.T.A.). The DBRS rating is a second rating on an existing transaction issued in November 2008. MBSCAT 1 F.T.A. issued three classes of mortgage-backed floating rate notes (Series A, Series B and Series C). On February 25, 2011 the Amendment of the Articles of Incorporation was signed. Under the Amendment, €120,656,297.60 of current outstanding Series A notes were exchanged for a €120,656,297.60 B Loan, resulting in an outstanding current balance of €575,393,265.92 for the Series A notes. DBRS rates Series A notes only. The Series A notes are backed by floating rate, first or second lien, fully amortizing mortgage loans or mortgage lines of credit mainly originated in the regions of Catalonia, Andalucia, Madrid, and Castilla la Mancha. The originator and servicer of this transaction is Caixa d’Estalvis de Catalunya, which, after the merger that took place on the 1st of July 2010 with Caixa Tarragona and Caixa Manresa, became Caixa d’Estalvis de Catalunya, Tarragona y Manresa (“CatalunyaCaixa”).

The ratings are based upon DBRS review of the following analytical considerations:
•Transaction capital structure and form and sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
•Relevant credit enhancement is in the form of excess spread, a funded reserve fund and subordination.
•The ability of the transaction to withstand stressed cash flow assumptions and repay investors according to terms in which they have invested.
•The transaction parties’ capabilities with respect to originations, underwriting, servicing, and financial strength.
•The credit quality of the collateral and ability of the Servicers to perform collection activities on the collateral.

DBRS credit analysis is performed on a loan-level basis and includes a probability of default and loss given default assessment, an originator- and servicer-specific historical performance review, an analysis of loan default data from the Bank of Spain, a Spanish housing market and property price trend evaluation, and finally a cash flow simulation based on various stresses to prepayments, timing of defaults and recoveries and interest rates.

DBRS made appropriate adjustments to our model parameters based on the analysis of market value declines in Spain and the historical performance data provided by the originator and servicer.

Note:
All figures are in Euro unless otherwise noted.

The applicable methodologies are Master European Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Rating Methodology and Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions, which can be found on our website under Methodologies, with adjustments made for the Spain mortgages.

The sources of information used for this rating include working papers and data on the Spanish economy and housing market provided by: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, OECD, ECB, Ministerio de Vivienda, Bank of Spain, Consejo General del Poder Judicial and Finsolutia. DBRS conducted an operational review on the origination and servicing practices of CatalunyaCaixa. CatalunyaCaixa provided loan-level data and historical performance of mortgage portfolio dating back to 2002. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

This is the first DBRS rating on this financial instrument.

For additional information on this rating, please refer to the linking document located below.

The full report providing additional analytical details is available by clicking on the link below or by contacting us at info@dbrs.com.

Lead Analyst: Keith Gorman
Rating Committee Chair: Claire Mezzanotte
Initial Rating Date: 28 February 2011

Ratings

  • US = Lead Analyst based in USA
  • CA = Lead Analyst based in Canada
  • EU = Lead Analyst based in EU
  • UK = Lead Analyst based in UK
  • E = EU endorsed
  • U = UK endorsed
  • Unsolicited Participating With Access
  • Unsolicited Participating Without Access
  • Unsolicited Non-participating

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