DBRS Morningstar Assigns Provisional Ratings to Flagship Credit Auto Trust 2022-1

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS Morningstar) assigned provisional ratings to the following classes of notes to be issued by Flagship Credit Auto Trust 2022-1 (the Issuer):

-- $243,130,000 Class A Notes at AAA (sf)
-- $27,770,000 Class B Notes at AA (sf)
-- $37,090,000 Class C Notes at A (sf)
-- $26,720,000 Class D Notes at BBB (sf)
-- $15,120,000 Class E Notes at BB (sf)

The provisional ratings are based on DBRS Morningstar’s review of the following analytical considerations:

(1) Transaction capital structure, proposed ratings, and form and sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
-- Credit enhancement is in the form of overcollateralization (OC), subordination, amounts held in the reserve account, and excess spread. Credit enhancement levels are sufficient to support the DBRS Morningstar-projected cumulative net loss (CNL) assumption under various stress scenarios.

(2) The DBRS Morningstar CNL assumption is 10.75% based on the expected Cut-Off Date pool composition.
-- DBRS Morningstar was conservative in the loss forecast analysis performed on the static pool data.

(3) The transaction assumptions consider DBRS Morningstar’s baseline macroeconomic scenarios for rated sovereign economies, available in its commentary Baseline Macroeconomic Scenarios For Rated Sovereigns December 2021 Update, published on December 9, 2021. These baseline macroeconomic scenarios replace DBRS Morningstar’s moderate and adverse COVID-19 pandemic scenarios, which were first published in April 2020. The baseline macroeconomic scenarios reflect the view that recent COVID-19 developments, particularly the new Omicron variant with subsequent restrictions, combined with rising inflation pressures in some regions, may dampen near-term growth expectations in coming months. However, DBRS Morningstar expects the baseline projections will continue to point to an ongoing, gradual recovery.

(4) The consistent operational history of Flagship Credit Acceptance, LLC (Flagship or the Company) and the strength of the overall Company and its management team.
-- The Flagship senior management team has considerable experience and a successful track record within the auto finance industry.

(5) The capabilities of Flagship with regard to originations, underwriting, and servicing.
-- DBRS Morningstar performed an operational review of Flagship and considers the entity an acceptable originator and servicer of subprime automobile loan contracts with an acceptable backup servicer.

(6) The Company indicated that it may be subject to various consumer claims and litigation seeking damages and statutory penalties. Some litigation against Flagship could take the form of class-action complaints by consumers; however, the Company indicated that there is no material pending or threatened litigation.

(7) The legal structure and presence of legal opinions that will address the true sale of the assets to the Issuer, the nonconsolidation of the special-purpose vehicle with Flagship, that the trust has a valid first-priority security interest in the assets, and the consistency with the DBRS Morningstar “Legal Criteria for U.S. Structured Finance.”

Flagship is an independent, full-service automotive financing and servicing company that provides (1) financing to borrowers who do not typically have access to prime credit-lending terms to purchase late-model vehicles and (2) refinancing of existing automotive financing.

The rating on the Class A Notes reflects 31.85% of initial hard credit enhancement provided by subordinated notes in the pool (30.35%), the reserve account (1.00%), and OC (0.50%). The ratings on the Class B, C, D, and E Notes reflect 23.95%, 13.40%, 5.80%, and 1.50% of initial hard credit enhancement, respectively. Additional credit support may be provided from excess spread available in the structure.

ESG Considerations
A description of how DBRS Morningstar considers ESG factors within the DBRS Morningstar analytical framework can be found in the DBRS Morningstar Criteria: Approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance Risk Factors in Credit Ratings at https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/373262.

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

The principal methodology is Rating U.S. Retail Auto Loan Securitizations (May 10, 2021), which can be found on dbrsmorningstar.com under Methodologies & Criteria.

The DBRS Morningstar Sovereign group releases baseline macroeconomic scenarios for rated sovereigns. DBRS Morningstar analysis considered impacts consistent with the baseline scenarios as set forth in the following report: https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/384482.

The rated entity or its related entities did participate in the rating process for this rating action. DBRS Morningstar 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 [email protected].
For more information on this credit or on this industry, visit www.dbrsmorningstar.com or contact us at [email protected].

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