Australia/New Zealand Structured Finance House: National Australia Bank
Covering all angles
In a booming market, one Melbourne-headquartered financial has fortified its reputation as the go-to house for regular and new issuers alike. In recognition of its consistent table-topping position and innovative track record, National Australia Bank is IFR’s Australia and New Zealand Structured Finance House of the Year.
For a bookrunner that has been on four out of five Antipodean ABS and RMBS tickets since 2020, it is much quicker to count the deals National Australia Bank has not been involved in than those it has.
Underlining its dominance, NAB participated in 58 of the 77 Australian securitisations during the awards period to November 7, chalking up a first-placed 18% share of a A$60.4bn (US$39bn) market.
That total is 28% more than the £22.7bn RMBS and ABS in the sterling market from 57 transactions and around 70% of the €47.3bn supply from 83 euro issues in the same period.
On the supply side, more and more nonbank originators are issuing RMBS and other structured products, particularly auto-related ABS, where annual supply now exceeds A$10bn as banks, which have cheaper funding options, divest their non-core businesses.
Allied Credit, Angle Finance and Resimac, for example, have all expanded their ABS programmes after taking over the prime auto loan books of Macquarie and Westpac.
“One of things we focus on is innovating with our customers and working very closely with our sales team, which enables us to align investor and issuer goals,” said Sharyn Le, NAB's global head of securitisation originations.
To help marry buyside and sellside needs, Le emphasised the importance NAB placed on bringing its origination, execution, syndication and secondary trading teams together under one roof, led by Sarah Samson, the bank's executive of capital markets, origination and distribution.
Growth has been fuelled by an expanded offshore real money bid that now takes half Australian RMBS and ABS, evenly split between Japanese and European/UK investors. A few years ago, offshore investors typically accounted for just 20%.
“Demand has been very good from overseas investors who like Australia from a sovereign/government perspective and from a credit quality perspective through the cycle,” said Paul Kok, director, securitisation originations at NAB.
“Australian collateral is seen as a very good buffer against global volatility, while, in relative value terms, Australian RMBS and ABS offer attractive returns versus other offshore instruments, particularly US CLOs and European CLOs,” he said.
NAB has been at the forefront in boosting investor interest from Europe and Japan.
“For Europe, we have championed standardisation from a regulatory perspective, including risk retention compliance and providing quarterly collateral quality updates to meet EMTA requirements,” Kok said.
In Japan, NAB made a push to expand distribution in 2025 by introducing new products and issuers to investors.
Reflecting this Japanese engagement, NAB participated in both of the year’s RMBS transactions to include a senior yen tranche, for non-bank originators Liberty Financial and Firstmac.
On the innovation front, NAB was arranger for the A$500m Firstmac Auto No 3, the first time the bids wanted in competition process has been used in an Australian primary issue with every mezzanine tranche pricing via BWIC.
NAB also arranged Australasia’s first unsecured SME revolving line of credit/overdraft ABS for Shift Financial and designed Australia’s inaugural risk-retention private funding solution for ORDE.
Across the Tasman Sea, NAB’s subsidiary Bank of New Zealand was arranger and/or lead manager on seven of the year’s eight transactions.
Its syndication prowess was underlined when it reopened the market following the "liberation day" US tariff shock in early April, with the NZ$193m Humm Q Card 2025-1 that drew 3.4 times' cover and brought in several new investors.
Other highlights included the debut auto ABS from Speirs Finance and Turners Automotive Group as well as the year’s only RMBS trade in New Zealand for Avanti Finance.
“Our team’s commitment to innovation, deep client relationships and market-leading execution has enabled us to deliver landmark transactions and set new benchmarks for the growth and evolution of our industry,” said Samson.
“In 2025, we supported a record number of issuers, pioneered new structures and consistently provided clients with access to global investor pools – even in challenging market conditions.”