Santander Consumer USA (SC) came to market with its first securitization transaction for the year, a $752.2 million offering backed by deep subprime auto loans, according to a Moody’s presale report released Thursday.
The share of loans in the 73 to 75 month range in the transaction — dubbed Drive Auto Receivables (DRIVE) Trust 2016-A — is at 7%, down from 10% in the previous ABS transaction.
DRIVE 2016-A is SC’s fifth deep subprime loan securitization since March 2015, when the bank revived its DRIVE securitization platform, according to the presale.
The platform is intended to securitize “deep subprime assets that do not conform to the collateral characteristics of their existing platforms, Santander Drive Auto Receivables Trust [SDART] and Chrysler Capital Auto Receivables Trust,” according to a previous presale report from Standard & Poor’s.
The bank restarted DRIVE after nearly a seven-year break, with the last transaction offered from the platform in 2008.
DRIVE 2016-A is largely consistent with the previous transaction, DRIVE 2015-D, with a weighted average credit score of 550. To compare, the weighted average credit score in SDART’s recent transaction is 597.
