Caixa Economica Federal, the largest mortgage lender in Brazil, had its first Mortgage-backed Securities or CRIs (Certificados de Recebiveis Imobiliarios) issuance in May 2011.
The BRL 240.8 million offering was placed through Brazilian Securities, one of the major Brazilian securitization companies and had an initial Fitch rating of AAA.The unit value was set at BRL 1,000, with an initial minimum investment of BRL 10,000. Approximately 80 percent of the 1,675 investors were made up of CEF’s retail customers. The CRIs will pay TR*+10% per year, are income tax exempt and will mature on 11/10/2018. They are very competitive as non-tax-exempt interbank deposit certificates pay TR+12% per year, i.e., an effective rate of TR+9.6%.
In the near future, CEF expects to securitize BRL 1.5 billion of its BRL 70 billion real estate loan portfolio, which is mostly made up of housing loans.
*TR is a reference rate set by the Banco Central Do Brasil that approximates inflation.
