Fitch Affirms Thekwini 6 RMBS
Fitch Ratings-Johannesburg/London-23 June 2009: Fitch Ratings has today affirmed The Thekwini Fund 6 (Pty) Ltd's (Thekwini 6) five tranches of residential mortgage-backed securities following a performance review. The agency has simultaneously assigned Loss Severity (LS) Ratings to all tranches. A full rating breakdown is provided at the end of this comment.
Thekwini 6, issued in October 2006, consists of home loans originated by SA Home Loans (Pty) Limited (SAHL). Thekwini 6 is still in its revolving period, whereby no principal is paid to the noteholders. The revolving period will come to an end in October 2009 unless a stop purchase event occurs earlier. Consequently, credit enhancement levels have remained the same as of the issue date up to this stage.
As of May 2009, Thekwini 6 displayed arrears greater than three months less technical arrears of 0.69% of the outstanding portfolio balance. Fitch notes that SAHL has repurchased certain non-performing loans from Thekwini 6, but is under no obligation to do so in the future. SAHL has undertaken to review its repurchase policy on a quarterly basis. Due to the repurchases, the level of arrears in the transaction are lower than they would otherwise have been had such non-performing loans not been repurchased. That said, the losses incurred from these repurchases have been minimal, representing overall losses to date of 0.04% of the total outstanding portfolio balance. Fitch will continue to monitor the transaction closely; as of the most recent performance review, Thekwini 6 continues to perform in line with expectations.
The ratings are affirmed as follows:
Class A1: affirmed at 'AAA(zaf)'; Outlook Stable; assigned a Loss Severity Rating of 'LS-1'
Class A2: affirmed at 'AAA(zaf)'; Outlook Stable; assigned a Loss Severity Rating of 'LS-1'
Class A3: affirmed at 'AAA(zaf)'; Outlook Stable; assigned a Loss Severity Rating of 'LS-1'
Class B: affirmed at 'A+(zaf)'; Outlook Stable; assigned a Loss Severity Rating of 'LS-1'
Class C: affirmed at 'BBB(zaf)'; Outlook Stable; assigned a Loss Severity Rating of 'LS-2'
Further commentary and performance data on the transaction are available on the agency's subscription website, www.fitchresearch.com
Contacts: Joshua Cohen, Johannesburg, Tel: +27 11 380 0907; Alfons Ideler, +27 11 380 0901.
Media Relations: Julian Dennison, London, Tel: +44 020 7682 7480, Email: julian.dennison@fitchratings.com.
Note to Editors: Fitch's National ratings provide a relative measure of creditworthiness for rated entities in countries with relatively low international sovereign ratings and where there is demand for such ratings. The best risk within a country is rated 'AAA' and other credits are rated only relative to this risk. National ratings are designed for use mainly by local investors in local markets and are signified by the addition of an identifier for the country concerned, such as 'AAA(zaf)' for National ratings in South Africa. Specific letter grades are not therefore internationally comparable.
Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.
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