DBRS Assigns Provisional Ratings to Navient Private Education Refi Loan Trust 2018-E

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS) assigned provisional ratings to the following classes of notes (the Notes) to be issued by Navient Private Education Refi Loan Trust 2018-E (Navient 2018-E):

-- $396,360,000 Class A-1 Notes rated AAA (sf)
-- $230,970,000 Class A-2 Notes rated AAA (sf)
-- $61,060,000 Class B Notes rated AA (sf)

The provisional ratings are based on a review by DBRS of the following analytical considerations:

-- Transaction capital structure, proposed ratings and form and sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
-- The ability of the transaction to withstand stressed cash flow assumptions and repay investors in accordance with the terms of the Navient 2018-E transaction documents.
-- The sequential-pay structure.
-- Structural features of the transaction that require the Class A-1 Notes and Class A-2 Notes to enter into full turbo principal amortization under certain circumstances.
-- The quality and credit characteristics of the student loans and underlying borrowers.
-- The ability of Navient Solutions, LLC (Navient) as servicer and Earnest Operations LLC (Earnest) as subservicer to perform collections on the collateral pool and other required activities.
-- The legal structure and expected presence of legal opinions that will address the true sale of the student loans, the non-consolidation of the trust, that the trust has a valid first-priority security interest in the assets and the consistency with the DBRS “Legal Criteria for U.S. Structured Finance.”

The collateral backing the Notes will consist of fixed-rate student loan refinancings that were originated by Earnest. Earnest, which was acquired by Navient in November 2017, is an online-lending platform focused on offering student loans and personal loans throughout the United States.

Notes:
All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

The principal methodology is Rating U.S. Private Student Loan Securitizations, which can be found on dbrs.com under Methodologies.

The rated entity or its related entities did participate in the rating process for this rating action. DBRS had access to the accounts and other relevant internal documents of the rated entity or its related entities in connection with this rating action.

Please see the related appendix for additional information regarding the sensitivity of assumptions used in the rating process.

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