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Synthetic CDO
Trustee
High Quality
Asset
Waterfall Diagram
CDS
Premium
Default Payment
Low Risk
Senior Tranche
Low Yield
Mezzanine Tranche
High Risk
Equity
High Yield
Types of Synthetic CDO
Originator Default
Payment Investors
Coupon
Asset LIBOR +
SPV X bps Senior
(Protection Seller)
Asset
Proceeds Mezzanine
Asset
CDS From CLN
Premium Equity
High Quality
Asset
A typical funding structure
Synthetic CDO ensures transfer of credit risk of assets not suited for
conventional securitization, while the actual assets are retained on the
balance sheet.
For example, Bank guarantees, Letter of Credit etc.
That means if CDO manager can reinvest in collateral pool risk free
asset at, say, (LIBOR-5 bp), it is able to gain from a savings of 20 bp on
each 100 dollar if structure is unfunded
A Considerable Gain
Structure of a CDO Tranche
Traditionally, a collateralized debt obligation pool is divided into three
tranches; wherein each tranche behaves as a separate CDO, enabling
the CDO originators to attract multiple investors having varying risk
preferences
1. Senior Tranche or Senior Debt: This is typically highly rated, since
it is ranked on top in terms of priority of payments. However, the
interest rate on investments in this tranche is the lowest due to the
lower risk that accompanies them
2. Mezzanine Tranche: This tranche has moderate returns and
moderate risk
3. Equity Tranche: Investment in this tranche yields the highest
interest rate. This high rate is offered to counter the higher risk on this
tranche. Equity tranche investors are the first to lose funds when loans
in the pool are not repaid
Single Tranche CDO
Also known as ‘tailor made CDOs’, they are customized to
meet the individual investor needs with respect to:
Portfolio Size
Asset Classes
Portfolio diversity and rating
Portfolio geographical and industrial variation
Portfolio term to maturity
Type of collaterals used
Subordination level
Single Tranche CDO
Single-tranche CDOs represent the vast majority of all new synthetic
CDO issuances.
The CDO manager sells only a single tranche – usually at the
mezzanine level – of the capital structure to an investor instead of
selling all the tranches at the same time
The Single Tranche CDO can be issued either directly by the Banks
or via SPVs
Tax Issues
Since the title of the reference Obligations are not transferred to the
Protection Seller, taxation is not a major consideration in the case of a
Synthetic CDO
Moody’s Ratings Framework
Moody's rating on each rated note represents the expected loss
on the note, which is the difference between the present value
of the expected payments on the note and the present value of
the promised payments under the note, expressed as a
percentage of the present value of the promise
Portfolio Characteristics
Most synthetic CDOs are highly leveraged and are thus sensitive to
fewer defaults than cash flow CDOs .Hence only a small amount of
subordination is necessary to support high ratings. This thin
subordination combined with the relatively small sizes of the rated
tranches generally requires more precision in the calculation of the tail
probability of the loss distribution.
Many synthetic CDOs do not have the ability to generate any excess
spread that may be used to offset losses in the reference pool. Hence,
it is even more important to capture the correct loss distribution when
analysing the expected loss of a CDO tranche
Qualitative Analysis
In case risks inherent in a synthetic CDO are not or cannot be modeled
quantitatively, they would be addressed through the legal
documentation, and hence the importance of Qualitative Analysis
They are flexible four parameter distribution family that can produce fat
tails and skewness
Properties of NIG
Normal Inverse Gaussian Distribution is a mixture of the normal and
the inverse Gaussian distributions
They are flexible four parameter distribution family that can produce
fat tails and skewness
Hence
Properties of NIG
A random variable X follows a Normal Inverse Gaussian Distribution
with parameters
With
Derivation of Pricing formula using
NIG:
Starting with:
The above is the expression for the NIG distribution function and
the density
Advantages
Time to market is less compared to a cash deal, with average execution
time typically varies from six to eight weeks based on the structure
compared to three to four months for an equivalent cash deal
Leads to lower transaction cost as SPV setup cost can be avoided
Use of credit derivatives offer greater flexibility for risk requirement
Cost of buying protection is lower and credit protection price is below the
note liability
Range of reference asset is wider and typically includes bank guarantee,
derivative instruments
Clients whose loans need not be sold off from the sponsoring agent’s
B/S can be better handled and leads to improved customer relationship
Credit default swap is cheaper than the underlying cash bond for many
reference names
Factors to consider during analysis
Three key factors are being considered by analystP