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NEW YORK - The asset-backed market is approaching a significant milestone, slated to surpass the corporate debt market in issuance for the first time in its history. Because of this threshold, and other reasons, securitization has become required reading for both corporate debt and equity market analysts.
At last week's American Securitization Forum 2004 Annual Meeting - before roughly 400 attendees that had the main ballroom at overcapacity - analysts from all three markets discussed the role of ABS in reshaping the financial landscape over the past two decades and what the future holds.
Although ABS is just a quarter of the unsecured debt market outstanding and one-tenth of the equity market (measured by the S&P 500), "it is a sizeable portion of the total fixed-income debt market," noted Citigroup Global Markets research analyst Ivan Gjaja.
As has become a standard at ASF gatherings, the audience was polled on different topics, including whether an...