Investec's Kensington Hopes For Mortgage Bond Sale In 2010

15th Jul 2010 17:54

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Kensington, the U.K. mortgage lending unit of Anglo-African bank Investec PLC (INVP.LN), is aiming to sell bonds backed by U.K. prime and non-conforming mortgages later this year, an official at Investec told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. "It's very early days. We're in the planning stages," Richard Downer, head of Investec's banking and institutions group, said. A deal would likely be between GPB175 million and GBP250 million in size, Downer said. In May, Bernard Kantor, Kensington's finance director, told Dow Jones Newswires that the lender wanted to bring two residential mortgage-backed securities deals to the market this year, although he said that the Greek debt crisis meant "markets have been set back." Kensington began lending again earlier this year. Bonds serviced with the payments made on a pool of residential mortgages that are taken off the mortgage providers' balance sheet ,RMBS, were an important source of mortgage lending in the U.K. before the U.S. subprime crisis killed investor appetite for these kinds of bonds. The market reopened in 2009, but volumes remain far lower than pre-crisis. In the first half of 2007, U.K. lenders issued 96.2 billion euros of RMBS. "If they put in the highest quality mortgages, investors would but it," one banker said. -by Mark Brown, Dow Jones Newswires; + 44 (0)207 842 9485, [email protected] (Margot Patrick in London contributed to this item.) (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 15, 2010 12:54 ET (16:54 GMT)