Tom Lemmon had his head in the clouds this week as he took off for Miami (if you’re at ABS East, get in touch for a meeting). So, it was up to Victoria Thiele and George Smith alone to discuss European securitization.

Equity release mortgages have been securitized in mostly private transactions for a long time, but George has heard good reasons why they might be on the verge of progressing into a public market.

While geopolitical tumult is shaking the market, Victoria discovered that uptier priming in European CLOs is about to lose its last sworn enemy among the triple-A investors.

At the time of recording, the team was still thrilled about the prospect of George visiting London for the first time in three months. Unfortunately, storm Babet had other ideas and forced him to delay his trip by a week. The good news is: this gives keen market participants five more days to snap up a coffee drinking slot with him, so do reach out if you’re not meeting him already.