Loan buyers warned about rush of Sofr opt-in amendments
CLO managers must be mindful of loan amendments that facilitate a benchmark switch from Libor to Sofr, as they could find themselves buried in paperwork and locked into tight deadlines

European CLO managers aim for bigger bond bucket fix
European CLO managers are eyeing larger fixed rate bond allocations amid dislocation and lower loan supply. This has, in turn, led to an increase in fixed rate tranches

Investable universe for Euro CLOs shrinks amid inflation
The number of loans suitable for European CLOs is getting smaller at a time when new CLO issuers are looking to enter the market

Fund performance: Credit bounces back from February blues
March performance figures were a slight improvement from the market turn in February; 47% of funds made positive returns, an increase on 17% the previous month

Credit hedge funds (May 2022)
Credit hedge fund returns  

Ucits at a glance: Robus stands tall among Ucits funds
27% of Ucits funds had positive returns in March, a slight improvement from 10% in February

Credit funds at a glance (May 2022)
A round up of fundraising and people moves in credit
   

We’re drifting apart
Everyone’s issuing US CLOs these days and it is tempting to believe the crowd of managers is blending into one. However, overall portfolio overlap has dropped to 37.7% across 2021 CLOs  

Tech firm eyes data-driven approach to CLO management
As New York-based tech firm Exos prepares to launch what it calls “the first truly tech-enabled CLO”, the specialist leading its efforts says technology could soon play a central role in CLO portfolio optimisation

Loan fintech drills into private data to free up analysts’ time
The role of credit analysts could be redefined if a new product launched by a tech company takes off

Dispersion begets dispersion in mixed bag of fund returns
Idiosyncratic risks are set to rise in credit, with fund managers becoming occupied with tail risks, and that has been seen in a scattered set of March hedge fund returns

Points up front: Italian international tackles banking after rugby
In his latest column, on page 21, Thomas Majewski draws similarities between the CLO market and a youth soccer game. Turns out there might also be parallels between investment banking and rugby

Points up front: "It’s all me, me, me"
A study last month by the University of Marburg found that narcissistic fund managers are up to 34% more likely to deviate from their advertised investment style, and they tend to underperform non-narcissists.

SEC's CDS proposals could impede market rather than help it: Barclays
New rules proposed by the US Securities & Exchange Commissions to tighten oversight of the CDS market could mean big changes for the market and have the effect of sapping activity, warn Barclays credit strategists in a note published on Thursday

High yield / loan slowdown affects year-end projections and pricing: Barclays
A sharp decline in primary market activity means expectations for high yield bond and even leveraged loan issuance need to be lowered, say Barclays credit strategists. And that in turn has implications for relative value

CLO market and congress plead with SEC to extend rule comment period to 90 days
SEC rule proposals are no page-turners: members of the US congress are looking to extend comment periods from 30 days to 90 days. Recent SEC rule proposals require commentors to read and analyse roughly 3,570 pages and respond to 2,260 individually identified questions   

Managers debate ethics of investments in arms makers

Fund performance: Credit slumps widely as CLOs lag furthest behind
February’s market turn brought a variety of fund categories into the Creditflux top ten as six different categories were represented -- US high yield standing tallest among them

Credit hedge funds (April 2022)
Credit hedge fund returns

Credit funds at a glance (April 2022)
A round up of fundraising and people moves in credit  

Ucits at a glance: Long-short funds provide resistance in tough month
In February, Ucits funds followed market sentiment as 90% made negative returns

Attack-minded CLO managers capitalise on bearish outlook
Some of the most aggressive CLO managers have benefited from loan market volatility in March after having tweaked their portfolios in the months beforehand

US loans recover but CLOs lag and issuance stutters
The US leveraged loan market spent the latter half of March recovering losses from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with prices now above where they were when the war started

European CLO pipeline thins as investors wait for stability
The European leveraged loan and CLO market has yet to regain momentum following the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, with investors pointing to a thin immediate CLO pipeline