OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings says in the March edition of its SME CLO Compare that European SME CLO performance has continued to improve over the past month. Average 90-day delinquencies (excluding assets classified as defaulted) and current defaults have fallen across all deals monitored by the agency.

Italian 90-day delinquencies have continued to decrease, to 1.51% in February from 1.92% in January, Spanish 90 day delinquencies meanwhile have increased slightly to 2.09% from 1.95% during the same period.

In February Fitch reviewed one transaction, Berica PMI S.r.l. on which no action was taken, and rated one new transaction Multi Lease AS. One transaction, Ruralpyme 2 FTPYME, FTA, was called.

On 1 March Fitch published a report "Fitch: Real Estate Drives European SME CLOs". In the report Fitch states that European SME CLO performance is largely driven by real estate assets, which represent the largest sector in the portfolio.

On 25 February Fitch published commentary entitled "Fitch: Italian SME Default Data Not Always Representative", highlighting the "significant differences between static vintage data and empirical default rates used to validate internal ratings models for Italian SME borrowers.

On 23 February Fitch issued a final rating of 'A-sf' on Multi Lease AS's class A notes. The notes were also assigned a Stable Outlook. The transaction is a granular cash flow securitisation of a EUR1.01bn static pool of euro-denominated receivables deriving from lease agreements entered into between Italian small and medium sized enterprises and Sardaleasing S.p.A., which is the leasing company of the Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna Soc.

The Compare tracks the performance of all SME CLO transactions monitored by FITCH based on their investor reports. The report is updated on a monthly basis.