New York, August 30, 2011 -- Moody's Investors Service announced today that it has upgraded the ratings
of five classes of notes issued by Ashford CDO I Ltd. The notes
affected by today's rating action are as follows:
Class A-1LA Notes (current balance of $108,744,625),
Upgraded to Baa3 (sf) and Remains On Review for Possible Upgrade;
previously on June 24, 2011 Ba2 (sf) Placed Under Review for Possible
Upgrade
Class A-1LB Notes, Upgraded to Ba2 (sf) and Remains On Review
for Possible Upgrade; previously on June 24, 2011 Caa1 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade
Class A-2L Notes, Upgraded to B1 (sf) and Remains On Review
for Possible Upgrade; previously on June 24, 2011 Caa3 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade
Class A-3L Notes, Upgraded to B3 (sf) and Remains On Review
for Possible Upgrade; previously on June 24, 2011 Ca (sf) Placed
Under Review for Possible Upgrade
Class B-1L Notes, Upgraded to Caa3 (sf) and Remains On Review
for Possible Upgrade; previously on June 24, 2011 C (sf) Placed
Under Review for Possible Upgrade
RATINGS RATIONALE
According to Moody's, the rating actions taken on the notes result
primarily from improvement in the credit quality of the portfolio.
Following an announcement by Moody's on June 22nd that nearly all CLO
tranches currently rated Aa1 (sf) and below were placed on review for
possible upgrade ("Moody's places 4,220 tranches from 611 U.S.
and 171 European CLO transactions on review for upgrade"), 98 tranches
of U.S. and European Structured Finance (SF) CDOs with material
exposure to CLOs were also placed on review for possible upgrade ("Moody's
places 98 tranches from 19 U.S. and 3 European SF CDO transactions
with exposure to CLOs on review for upgrade"). Today's rating action
on the notes reflects CLO tranche upgrades that have taken place thus
far, as well as a two notch adjustment for CLO tranches which remain
on review for possible upgrade. According to Moody's, 62%
of the collateral has been upgraded since June 22nd, and 33%
remains on review.
As of the latest trustee report in August 2011, the Class A overcollateralization
ratio has improved to 115.23% versus July 2010 levels of
97.99%. Currently the B OC test is failing,
resulting in both the diversion of interest proceeds to payment of the
principal on the Class A notes and deferred interest payments to the Class
B Notes.
Ashford CDO I Ltd. is a collateralized debt obligation backed primarily
by a portfolio CLO tranches originated between 2004 and 2007.
The principal methodology used in this rating was "Moody's Approach to
Rating SF CDOs" published in November 2010. Please see the Credit
Policy page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.
Moody's applied the Monte Carlo simulation framework within CDOROMv2.8
to model the loss distribution for SF CDOs. Within this framework,
defaults are generated so that they occur with the frequency indicated
by the adjusted default probability pool (the default probability associated
with the current rating multiplied by the Resecuritization Stress) for
each credit in the reference. Specifically, correlated defaults
are simulated using a normal (or "Gaussian") copula model that applies
the asset correlation framework. Recovery rates for defaulted credits
are generated by applying within the simulation the distributional assumptions,
including correlation between recovery values. Together,
the simulated defaults and recoveries across each of the Monte Carlo scenarios
define the loss distribution for the reference pool.
Once the loss distribution for the collateral has been calculated,
each collateral loss scenario derived through the CDOROM loss distribution
is associated with the interest and principal received by the rated liability
classes via the CDOEdge cash-flow model . The cash flow
model takes into account the following: collateral cash flows,
the transaction covenants, the priority of payments (waterfall)
for interest and principal proceeds received from portfolio assets,
reinvestment assumptions, the timing of defaults, interest-rate
scenarios and foreign exchange risk (if present). The Expected
Loss (EL) for each tranche is the weighted average of losses to each tranche
across all the scenarios, where the weight is the likelihood of
the scenario occurring. Moody's defines the loss as the shortfall
in the present value of cash flows to the tranche relative to the present
value of the promised cash flows. The present values are calculated
using the promised tranche coupon rate as the discount rate. For
floating rate tranches, the discount rate is based on the promised
spread over Libor and the assumed Libor scenario.
Moody's rating action today factors in a number of sensitivity analyses
and stress scenarios, discussed below. Results are shown
in terms of the number of notches' difference versus the current model
output, where a positive difference corresponds to lower expected
loss, assuming that all other factors are held equal:
Moody's Watchlisted bucket notched up by 3 rating notches:
Class A1a: +1
Class A1b: +1
Class A2: +1
Class A3: +1
Class B1: +1
Moody's Watchlisted bucket notched up by 1 rating notches:
Class A1a: 0
Class A1b: 0
Class A2: 0
Class A3: -1
Class B1: -1
Further information on Moody's analysis of this transaction is available
on www.moodys.com
REGULATORY DISCLOSURES
For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series
or category/class of debt or pursuant to a program for which the ratings
are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's
rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to the rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular
rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the
support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive
rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt,
in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed
prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would
have affected the rating. For further information please see the
ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.
Information sources used to prepare the rating are the following:
parties involved in the ratings, public information, and confidential
and proprietary Moody's Investors Service information.
Moody's did not receive or take into account a third party assessment
on the due diligence performed regarding the underlying assets or financial
instruments related to the monitoring of this transaction in the past
six months.
Moody's considers the quality of information available on the rated entity,
obligation or credit satisfactory for the purposes of issuing a rating.
Moody's adopts all necessary measures so that the information it uses
in assigning a rating is of sufficient quality and from sources Moody's
considers to be reliable including, when appropriate, independent
third-party sources. However, Moody's is not an auditor
and cannot in every instance independently verify or validate information
received in the rating process.
Please see Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions on the Rating Process
page on www.moodys.com for further information on the meaning
of each rating category and the definition of default and recovery.
Please see ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com
for the last rating action and the rating history.
The date on which some ratings were first released goes back to a time
before Moody's ratings were fully digitized and accurate data may not
be available. Consequently, Moody's provides a date that
it believes is the most reliable and accurate based on the information
that is available to it. Please see the ratings disclosure page
on our website www.moodys.com for further information.
Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to
the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued
the rating.
New York
Oswald Espinoza
Associate Analyst
Structured Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
New York
Jian Hu
MD - Structured Finance
Structured Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
Moody's upgrades the ratings of five classes of SF CDO notes issued by Ashford CDO I, Ltd.