Whinstone Capital Management Limited - November 2005

Ian O’Meara and Jonathan Rigby of Mourant’s London office provided the Jersey legal advice on this innovative and groundbreaking transaction which won the International Financial Review’s "European Securitisation of the Year" award for 2005.

Northern Rock plc became the first originator to securitise the first loss pieces on its Granite master trust mortgage securitisation programme and the previous Granite stand-alone mortgage securitisations. The transaction used synthetic securitisation techniques to transfer the risk in the first loss pieces of the previous transactions to third party investors who purchased credit-linked notes issued by Whinstone Capital Management Limited, which assumed the risk from Northern Rock via a credit default swap.

We worked with lead counsel Sidley Austin on the transaction, with Allen & Overy acting for the lead managers.