The National Association of Trailer Manufacturers (NATM) successfully persuaded policy-makers to broaden the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Financing (TALF) program to include trailers. The only trailers included in the original TALF program were recreational vehicles (RVs), making them eligible for retail loans and leases and dealer floor plan financing.
Treasury and the Federal Reserve had previously announced that they were working “on the expansion of TALF” and that additional classes of asset-backed securities – e.g., other construction equipment, agricultural equipment, other floor plan securitizations – will be eligible under the expanded program after analysis of those other asset-backed securitizations.
NATM educated key policy-makers on the trailer industry, and their historical position as a securitizable instrument, which was crucial to the effort.
According to a Q & A released by the Federal Reserve on March 19:
“Eligible floorplan receivables will include revolving lines of credit used to finance dealers' inventories of items including, but not limited to, vehicles such as cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, TRAILERS, boats and sports vehicles; agricultural, construction, or manufacturing equipment; manufactured housing; large appliances; and electronic equipment. These revolving lines of credit may be collateralized by a mixed type of inventory, including any type of inventory that has collateralized securitized floorplan loans in the past. Auto floorplan receivables will include revolving lines of credit to finance dealer inventories of cars and light trucks."