4/27/2026
Good morning and happy birthday to the Freshly Squeezed Newsletter!
Thank you to all of you that subscribe and support, it remains very humbling to see how many people read or get in touch with a question. I can’t quite believe it’s been a whole year since this idea took shape, but let’s hope for many more editions for years to come!
As for ABS, it’s been another good, honest week of hard graft with four deals pricing, although two were pre-placed. The two fully offered trades, a UK auto from Startline Motor Finance and the second euro-denominated Swiss auto from Multilease AG, both built their books well to end with impressive prints. Both saw bumper demand in the mezz while Startline managed to issue its largest auto ABS for the Satus programme.
It follows on from the incredible turnaround led by Mercedes the week before, where suddenly investors were chomping at the bit and willing to go tighter and tighter to secure their paper.
This week, with the geopolitical situation a little calmer, Startline’s £458.3m Satus 2026-1 was able to tighten significantly from IPTs with coverage on Classes B-E 3.7x, 4.1x, 4.7x and 4.0x covered, respectively. However, the Class A’s didn’t budge from IPTs at high 80s/90a and books ending just 1.3x covered to land at 90bps over Sonia.
For Multilease’s €550m First Mobility Swiss Lease 2026-1, which offered two tranches, both were well sought after. Classes A and B finished 2.4x and 3.6x covered, which allowed the leads to tighten in and print exactly as First Mobility Swiss Lease 2025-1 did last July.
So, it’s clear that investor enthusiasm is returning, even if it is more patchy at the very top of the stack – with generally much larger tranche sizes, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. While both trades were autos, neither are at the super liquid end of the spectrum, which should give a further boost to issuers coming to the market with less vanilla collateral.
That all points to big things in May, which we already understand will be hectic as issuers look to be done and dusted before Global ABS in early June. Onwards and upwards.
It’s been a fair while since we’ve seen any Equity Release Mortgages, until last week when Prudential Lifetime Mortgages (owned by M&G) announced it had priced and majority pre-placed a £1.1bn transaction, named Serval 2026-1 Plc. Once again, it was rated by my colleagues in ARC Ratings – read more here.
The asset class has become increasingly familiar to securitization investors since late 2024, but Serval is the first Equity Release trade since December 2025. Often in these more unusual markets, you need a first mover to get things going. Will we see a few more come to town before Barcelona?
Multilease AG, the Swiss captive finance company owned by the Emil Frey Group, returned to the Euro-denominated ABS market almost exactly a year to the day since its Euro debut, following 7 deals in Swiss Francs since 2017. However, geopolitical concerns around the ongoing conflict in Iran meant that – until recently - this was a challenging time to enter the market, one where less vanilla collateral could be particularly tested. However... click here to read the full overview on Concept ABS.
The wild volatility in broader financial markets when the US-Israel-Iran conflict began is certainly not on display anymore. But oil is still trading around $95bbl and the Strait of Hormuz is still under blockade. Add in a record Q1 of €6bn auto supply and further €1bn already in Q2 and its little wonder that issuers have recently been forced to offer 10bps more than they may have planned for before March.
Notwithstanding all those factors at play, the success of Mercedes' latest Silver Arrow just a few days before First Mobility priced could have given the leads a shot in the arm. But Mercedes is a highly liquid, STS, benchmark German issuer. This is Swiss collateral in Euros hitting screens for just the second time. As such, the leads had to tread a fine line. IPTs began with as much as 12bps pickup from First Mobility Swiss Lease 2025-1 on the Class A tranche...click here to read the full Market Context on Concept ABS.
Well, I can’t quite believe it’s been a whole year of the newsletter. In truth, it rather crept up on me!
I think one of the things I’m learning in life is how consistency trumps almost every other talent, in the end. This is terrible news for me as consistency was not a gift I was blessed with, and is a skill I have to train (and continue to do so). But here we are, still writing week in, week out.
So, very chuffed and grateful that Freshly Squeezed is still being consumed, liked, commented on, and who knows, maybe someone somewhere laughs occasionally.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week,
Tom
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