OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings expects to assign the following ratings and Outlooks to the Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2016-A (FCALT 2016-A) notes:

--$167,000,000 class A-1 notes 'F1+sf';
--$413,000,000 class A-2a/A-2b notes 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--$228,000,000 class A-3 notes 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--$94,000,000 class A-4 notes 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--$50,700,000 class B notes 'AAsf'; Outlook Stable;
--$47,300,000 class C notes 'NR'.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
Strong Credit Quality: Credit quality for the pool is consistent with that of recent pools. The weighted average (WA) Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) score is 742 and WA original term is 35.2 months, with 88.4% of the leases with terms of 36 months or more. The pool is geographically diverse with approximately 11.5 months of seasoning and comprises 100% new vehicles.

Diversified Lease Maturities: 2016-A consists of 73.4% undiscounted base residual value (RV), in line with prior pools. The lease maturities are well distributed. The single highest month of residual maturities represents 5.7% (compared to 6.3% in 2015-B) occurring in May 2018. The maximum three-month, six-month, and 12-month residual value maturity concentrations are 16.4%, 27.9% and 54.2%, respectively, down from prior transactions.

Adequate Credit Enhancement Structure: 2016-A is a sequential-pay structure. Initial hard credit enhancement (CE) for the class A notes totals 20.40% (8.70% subordinated class B and C notes, 11.20% initial overcollateralization [OC], and 0.50% reserve). Initial excess spread is expected to be 4.25%.

Evolving Wholesale Market: The U.S. wholesale vehicle market has been normalizing following strong performance in recent years. Fitch expects that increasing off-lease vehicle supply and pressure from increased production levels will lead to decreased residual realizations during the life of the transaction.

Consistent Origination/Underwriting/Servicing: Ford Credit demonstrates good capabilities as originator, underwriter and servicer, as evidenced by historical delinquency, credit, and residual value loss performance of its managed portfolio and securitizations.

Legal Structure Integrity: The legal structure of the transaction should provide that a bankruptcy of Ford Credit would not impair the timeliness of payments on the securities.

RATING SENSITIVITIES
Unanticipated decreases in the value of returned vehicles and/or increases in the frequency of defaults and loss severity on defaulted receivables could produce loss levels higher than the base case and would likely result in declines of CE and loss coverage levels available to the notes. Hence, Fitch conducts sensitivity analyses by increasing the transaction's initial base case RV and credit loss assumptions and examining the rating implications on all classes of issued notes. The increases to the base case losses are applied such that they represent moderate (1.5x) and severe (2.5x) stresses, and are intended to provide an indication of the rating sensitivity of notes to unexpected deterioration of a trust's performance.

DUE DILIGENCE USAGE
Fitch was provided with third-party due diligence information from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The third-party due diligence focused on a comparison and re-computation of certain characteristics with respect to 125 sample leases. Fitch considered this information in its analysis and the findings did not have an impact on our analysis/conclusions. A copy of the ABS Due Diligence Form-15E received by Fitch in connection with this transaction may be obtained through the link at the bottom of the rating action commentary.

Key Rating Drivers and Rating Sensitivities are further described in the presale report dated March 10, 2016. Fitch's analysis of the Representations and Warranties (R&W) of this transaction can be found in 'Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2016-A -Appendix'. These R&Ws are compared to those of typical R&W for the asset class as detailed in the special report 'Representations, Warranties, and Enforcement Mechanisms in Global Structured Finance Transactions' dated March 2016.