Leading global law firm Mayer Brown has acted for Santander Consumer Bank AS on a €500m auto loan securitisation, Bilkreditt 3, which is the first securitisation to receive the Prime Collateralised Securities (PCS) label.
The PCS label is a new industry initiative to ensure high quality securitisations meet best practice in terms of quality, transparency, simplicity and standardisation. It is hoped the initiative, alongside regulatory changes, will provide a significant boost to the market.
The transaction is also the first publicly syndicated offering from a Norwegian auto loan originator and the first publicly sold auto securitisation from Scandinavia.
The transaction involved the issuance by Bilkreditt 3 Limited, an Irish special purpose company, of EUR 670m of Class A1 Floating Rate Secured Notes, NOK1,096.1m of Class A2 Floating Rate Secured Notes and NOK1,061.3m of Class B Floating Rate Secured Notes, and is Santander Consumer Bank AS’s first euro-dominated ABS. The euro-dominated securities have a ‘soft bullet’ amortisation schedule while the NOK-dominated companion series pass through remaining principal collections.
Kevin Hawken, Banking & Finance partner, said: “We are very proud to have assisted Santander on this landmark transaction. We strongly support industry efforts to promote and standardise best practice in the asset backed securities market.”
Dominic Griffiths, Head of Banking & Finance in London, said: “We are delighted to have taken the lead in supporting this important market development and credit goes to Kevin and the team for their fine work on this groundbreaking project.”
The Mayer Brown Banking & Finance team was led by partner Kevin Hawken who was assisted by associates Lucy Hall and Nathan Weaver. Chambers Global, The Legal 500 and IFLR consistently rank Mayer Brown’s securitisation practice as a Tier 1 group.
Mayer Brown also advised Santander Consumer Bank AS as originator in relation to a NOK 4,770 billion securitisation of a pool of Norwegian auto loan receivables last year.
