Westlake Services priced the upsized $320 million Automobile Receivables-Backed Notes Series 2014- — its first deal of 2014, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Freddie Mac has long struggled to compete with larger rival Fannie Mae because the former's mortgage-backed securities trade at a discount to the latter's. Their new regulator may change that.

Standard & Poor’s does not want to take the blame for Europe's stagnant securitization market.

Newtek Business Services, a regular securitizer of small business loans, has added two senior executives, Susan Streich and Harold Gartner, to expand the compliance and factoring services that it provides to clients.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has cut its 2014 loan origination forecast to $1.05 trillion because home purchase loan application volume is well behind where it was this time last year.

The Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority Connecticut’s green bank, has completed the first securitization of a $30 million portfolio of commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy liens.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has cut its2014 forecast for issuance of commercial mortgage bonds in light of the unexpectedly slow start to the year.

Groupe Banque Populaire, Caisse D’Epargne's €50 billion ($68.5 billion) RMBS program with a 10-year revolving period is the second French deal backed by mortgage securities to be issued this year, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Some of the first defaults have emerged on commercial mortgages securitized since the financial crisis, and they are primarily loans on multifamily properties, according to Fitch Ratings.

Exeter Finance Corp. and Westlake Services are planning to issue a total of $775 million of securities backed by subprime auto loans, according to rating agency presale reports.

View Thomson Reuters data on issuance for the year-to-date through May 16 for ABS, MBS and CMBS.

View the deals featured in ASR's Scorecard database that priced in the two weeks ended May 16.