10 March 2025 John Hwang  -  Derek Poon  -  Lucy Sidey  -  Adam Fogarty  -  Caleb Adebayo Capital Markets - Debt - Capital Markets - Equity - Corporate Governance - Derivatives - Structured Finance

Key Takeaways from SFVegas 2025

With over 10,000 people in attendance this year, SFVegas hit record numbers. The world’s largest securitization and asset finance conference had a diversity of focus areas with more than 50 panel sessions over the course of four days. The Linklaters team was in attendance from February 23 to February 26 at the Aria Resort and Casinos, in Las Vegas, where the conference was held.

The top three takeaways from the conference were:

  • Shifting regulatory and political landscape will take center stage. The current regulatory and political landscape in the U.S. and its impact globally was a common thread throughout the conference, including both micro and macro-economic effects. There was a recognition by many participants of the shifting political landscape, and its potential impact on the securitization markets. Guest speakers included U.S Representative Bill Huizenga (R-MI), former U.S. Senator, Claire McCaskill (D-MO), former Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and political correspondent Steve Kornacki, among others.

There was measured positivity at the conference on the anticipated deregulation or reduced regulation under Trump 2.0, with most speakers agreeing that the securitization market was the most regulated area of the U.S. capital markets and that any potential reduction in regulation would reduce the cost of doing business. However, most market participants expected their existing compliance infrastructures to remain in place for the near term, given a concern that State regulators might fill the void.

Conference participants expressed concerns about the negative impact U.S. tariffs could have on the U.S. economy and about the potential impact of the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the fears of how that would impact the residential mortgage market negatively, although most agreed that the prudent approach was a wait-and-see one. 

  • Digitalization is the future (of securitization too!). It was unsurprising that anything with a sprinkle of AI on it drew remarkable attention at the conference. There was a lot of focus on AI’s impact on specific sectors, such as data center and fiber securitizations, but also on the broader impact of AI on the markets and market infrastructure.

However, the digital infrastructure boom is not premised on AI alone, as the growth in cloud computing has enough potential to ensure that the digital infrastructure surge continues. Challenges such as potential obsolescence, constraints to sustainable power supply and efficient cooling will continue to be issues to grapple with. 

There was also notable interest in the digital assets and technology sectors. Many market participants acknowledged a wider adoption of AI on their platforms, including tasks such as document creation, automation and summarization. Digital assets are also getting more attention, in part because of the shifting political landscape, and many agree that the asset class faces liquidity, transparency and regulatory challenges, but has significant prospects and presents efficiencies. The increasing involvement of qualified custodians in the space, as well as the tokenization of assets, are reflective of growing regulatory acceptance and infrastructure developments in digital assets securitization.

  • Private Credit – the jack of all (securitization) trades. It seems more and more the case that private credit has its hands in everything, and it was certainly one of the hottest topics of conversation. Even in panels that were not focused on private credit, there was discussion of private credit’s growing involvement.

There was consensus that transacting with private credit providers brings benefits for counterparties such as certainty of execution, speed and flexibility, and that private credit has been, and will increasingly be, serving originators that may not fit the profile for big banks. The conversation around private credit also included copious references to insurance capital as approximately 50% of inflows into private credit funds are from insurance providers, so sourcing opportunities that provide appropriate asset/liability matching for insurers would be key.