OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2015. Fitch Ratings says there is no rating impact on Mercurio Mortgage Finance S.r.l. Series 2012-7 (Class A (ISIN IT0004791981) AA+sf/Stable) from a partial portfolio repurchase. The prime Italian RMBS transaction is backed by residential mortgage loans originated and serviced by the Italian branch of Barclays Bank Plc (Barclays, A/Stable/F1).

On 16 November 2015, Barclays entered into a partial repurchase agreement with Mercurio Mortgage Finance whereby it repurchased about EUR 1bln. of loans, equal to 17.7% of the pool balance as of August 2015, as allowed by the transaction documentation. The proceeds of the buyback will be distributed to the senior noteholders on the next interest payment date (28 January 2016). Fitch has estimated that the credit support available to the class A notes will increase by approximately 4.3 pp to 23.9% as a result of the repurchase.

Fitch has reviewed the repurchase agreement and received a detailed list of the repurchased loans, which are all performing and predominantly bearing a floating rate. After the buyback the proportion of total arrears should increase to 2.6% of the current pool from 2.1%, while outstanding defaults do not represent a risk since they have been fully provisioned. The agency has assessed the effect of the repurchase and concluded that the overall portfolio characteristics driving its default and recovery assumptions have remained unchanged, hence there are no implications for the creditworthiness of the rated notes.