Credit Suisse Group AG Wins Latest Maiden Lane III Auction; Citigroup, Deutsche Bank AG, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Others Vying For Duke CDOs-Reuters

Reuters reported that Credit Suisse Group AG had won the latest auction of mortgage-linked collateralized debt obligations from The New York Fed's Maiden Lane III portfolio of assets assumed from American International Group, Inc. during the insurer's bailout in 2008. Credit Suisse beat out six other broker-dealers vying for $691 million in slices of the Putnam Structured Product CDOs, which were put together in 2002 and backed by both residential and commercial mortgage bonds. In the run-up to auction, at least one of the dealers, RBS, was pitching a so-called resecuritization of the Putnam CDOs to investor clients, which would have restructured the complex security into a form that contained a new Triple A rating. Putnam CDO sale will be the first of two auctions from Maiden Lane III this week. On Thursday, the Fed will sell $1.67 billion in slices of the Duke High Grade Funding CDOs after postponing the auction for these CDOs last week. Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Guggenheim Securities, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and RBS will be vying for the Duke CDOs, which are backed by high-grade RMBS.