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By John Hintze
In March 2021, the administrator of the London Interbank Offered Rate made it official: certain tenors of U.S. dollar Libor would cease to publish on Dec. 31, 2021, with remaining settings terminating on June 30, 2023, for legacy transactions. With the long-telegraphed Libor endgame now set in stone, banks are picking up the pace of transition amid front- and back-end challenges.
One concern held by community, midsize and regional banks that use Libor is that the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the favored alternative of the Alternative Reference Rate Committee, a public-private group convened by the New York Fed, is that it does not reflect credit risk. In times of market stress, investors flocking to the risk-free rate would cause it to plummet, along with the banks’ returns on SOFR-priced loans, while their cost of funds jumps a bank nightmare.
The LMA Note also raises whether a Credit Adjustment Spread (
CAS) will be used in pricing to balance the need for economic parity with LIBOR when switching to an RFR, but a CAS is less likely to be used in a new Sterling LIBOR transaction.
3. Read the FMSB Draft
The FMSB Draft sets out eight draft Core Principle for the use of TSRRs, and the key message seems to be that lenders and market participants should have a very good reason for using a TSRR! It is more eloquently put in Core Principle 1:
“
Market participants should assess, in a manner consistent with this Standard and the RFR Working Group Use Cases, whether there is
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On November 30, 2020, parties to legacy LIBOR contracts breathed a collective sigh of relief as LIBOR’s administrator Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (“ICE”) announced that US Dollar LIBOR would continue to be published until December 31, 2021 for the one-week and two-month tenors and until June 30, 2023 for the remaining, more widely used tenors.
[i] As explained in our prior Client Alerts on the transition away from LIBOR, these extensions will allow time for most legacy LIBOR contracts to mature prior to the cessation of LIBOR’s publication,
[ii] significantly reducing – or at least delaying – the potential for disputes between counterparties over the selection of an appropriate alternative reference rate. But the potential for disputes remains, particularly because the earlier-expiring one-week and two-month tenors, though less popular than those expiring in June 2023, are still prevalent in corporate len
The SEC's Office of Municipal Securities is moving ahead on the Libor transition and issued a detailed advisory Friday to the municipal securities market.