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Moody's assigns ratings to Centex 2003-A notes

LONDON: Moody's Investors Service has assigned a rating of Aaa to the senior certificates in Centex's 2003-A securitization of fixed- and adjustable-rate home equity loans.

In addition, Moody's also assigned ratings ranging from Aa2 to Baa2 to the subordinate certificates issued in the transaction.

The ratings are based primarily on the quality of loans, subordination and excess spread.

Moody's Analyst, Taruna Reddy, indicates that the credit quality of the loans is about average for sub-prime mortgages and slightly better than the loans backing Centex's most recent sub-prime securitization, Series 2002-D.

While Centex's pools generally have higher-than-average weighted-average loan-to-value ratios, and a high percentage of second liens, the pool's strong aspects include a higher-than-average percentage of single-family and owner-occupied properties, as well as loans underwritten with full documentation standards.

The loan pool is divided into three groups, group I, group II and group III Group I consists of fixed-rate home equity loans and Group II and Group III consist of adjustable-rate home equity loans.

Group I will primarily support the fixed-rate certificates and Group II and III will primarily support the variable-rate certificates.

The deal benefits from cross-collateralization of the three groups Group I (which constitutes 40 percent of the total pool) has a similar FICO score of 608 against 603 when compared to that of the 2002-D transaction.

The 2003-A pool has a slightly lower concentration of second liens (14 percent against 15 percent) when compared to that of 2002-D, which makes the pool slightly less risky.

Also the average loan balances on the Group I loans are higher than that in the 2002-D.

The high concentration of owner-occupied properties (98 percent), and single family properties (90 percent) are other positive characteristics of the Group 1 loans.

Group II and Group III combined are similar in credit quality to the ARM pool in Centex's most recent securitization, 2002-D.

The FICO score (574) is the same as in 2002-D, but when compared to average sub-prime loans it is slightly weaker.

This weaker pool characteristic is mitigated by a high percentage of full documentation loans (85 percent), owner-occupied properties (98 percent), and single family properties (89 percent).

The complete rating actions are as follows: Issuer: Centex Home Equity Loan Trust 2003-A Securities:

Centex Home Equity Loan Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2003-1 Originator and Servicer:

Centex Home Equity Company, LLC ClassAmountRating Class A-IONotional Amountrated Aaa Class AF-1$82,250,000rated Aaa Class AF-2$15,500,000rated.

Aaa Class AF-3$47,400,000rated Aaa Class AF-4$63,000,000rated.

Aaa Class AF-5$ 6,110,000rated Aaa Class AF-6$24,200,000rated.

Aaa Class AV-1$129,053,000rated Aaa Class AV-2$128,987,000rated.

Aaa Class M-1 $42,000,000rated Aa2 Class M-2 $31,500,000rated.

A2 Class M-3 $19,500,000rated Baa1 Class B $ 7,500,000rated.

Baa2 Centex Home Equity Company, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centex Financial Services, Inc.

Which is a subsidiary of Centex Corporation (long term senior unsecured obligations rated Baa2 and commercial paper rated P-2 by Moody's), is a sub-prime mortgage lender based in Dallas, Texas.-Reuters