Liberty Financial prices $900m SME securitisation

Liberty Financial Pty Ltd (Liberty) has successfully priced its Liberty Series 2024-1 SME transaction.

This latest issue, known as the Liberty Series 2024-1 SME Trust, represents Liberty’s 13th set of securities backed by a portfolio of small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) loans, bringing the company’s total SME securitisations to $6.8 billion.

Due to robust investor demand across all tranches, the transaction was expanded from its initial launch volume of $500 million to a final size of $900 million.

National Australia Bank (NAB) acted as the sole arranger and also served as a joint lead manager along with Deutsche Bank and Westpac Banking Corporation.

The transaction involves $900 million of notes rated by Moody’s Investors Service. The
$585 million Class A1 notes are rated Aaa(sf) with a weighted average life of approximately 2.5 years and were priced at a margin of 130 bps over one-month BBSW.

The A$180 million Class A2 notes, also rated Aaa(sf), have a weighted average life of about 3.7 years and were priced at a margin of 160 bps over one-month BBSW.

The pricing for the Class B, C, D, E, and F notes, rated Aa2(sf), A2(sf), Baa2(sf), Ba2(sf), and B1(sf), respectively, has not been disclosed.

The securitisation comprises a pool of SME mortgages with a weighted average loan-to-value ratio of 61 per cent and is seasoned at 21 months.

The Liberty Series 2024-1 SME transaction is set to settle on 10 September 2024.

Peter Riedel, chief financial officer at Liberty, said: “Liberty is a leader in providing households and small businesses with the freedom to choose from a wide range of products and services to meet their financial needs. We are grateful for the support investors have extended to our business.”

Updated residential offering

This comes as the non-bank lender announced a swathe of changes to its residential lending policies that include tax debt consolidation options for low-doc borrowers, updated serviceability considerations for custom applicants with alternative income sources, and more flexibility in security requirements for custom deals.

The non-bank lender has extended its debt consolidation options for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and state department tax debts to include custom AA low doc borrowers where the loan-to-value ratio (LVR) is below 70 per cent.

In addition, custom applicants with child support, family tax benefits, and single parenting payments as an income source will see further serviceability enhancements applied.

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Adrian Suljanovic is a journalist at Broker Daily with more than two years experience reporting on all facets of the third party distribution channel.

Adrian has written for a range of business and finance titles including IFA, Investor Daily and Lawyer’s Weekly before joining the mortgages team in 2022.

He graduated from the University of Wollongong in 2021 gaining a Bachelor of Communication & Media with a major in Digital & Social Media.

E-mail Adrian at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.