BlueMountain buyout to bring CLO equity shift, funding pledge and Feldstein payout
BlueMountain Capital Management’s co-founder Andrew Feldstein looks set to receive a substantial pay-out in common shares of Assured Guaranty, which has agreed to buy the manager for around $160 million and has outlined a three-year plan for its CLOs

CLO managers suffer puncture with $85 million of Jack Cooper debt
CLO managers hold $85.8 million of exposure to auto hauler Jack Cooper Ventures, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to the latest trustee reports from CLO-i 

Apollo fee earnings rise 9% in Q2 as structured credit boosts portfolio
Apollo Global Management’s credit portfolio increased 4% quarter-over-quarter to $201 billion, driven by growth in affiliated life insurance firm Athene, as well as corporate credit and structured credit

Enhanced CLOs are no more enhancing than run-of-the-mill distressed funds
Triple C-heavy CLOs that try to time the market may be paying for options they never use

US CLOs thrive as managers embrace secondary loan market
Leveraged loan issuance is supposed to feed and keep CLOs healthy, but a 62% slowdown in US loan volumes this year was accompanied by average CLO equity distributions ticking 19% higher.

Rival manager’s warehouse contributes to new CIFC US CLO
CIFC Asset Management has had a productive year after pricing four new issue US CLOs but sources say that the manager’s latest deal, CIFC Funding 2019-IV, owes a lot to another CLO manager.

Fund performance: Mercury rises as does credit fund performance

Philadelphia Energy bankruptcy tars nine CLO managers with $241 million exposure
The Philadelphia-headquartered company has entered into bankruptcy protection for a second time, having only emerged from its first filing in August

Upward flexes, CLOs gather speed and 'net-short' language develops [podcast]
The Acuris Fixed Income Group in North America recounts Q2 in the leveraged credit markets.    

US loan veteran MacLean to retire from Pimco
Pimco loan portfolio manager Beth MacLean will be retiring from the firm in March, a spokesperson for the company firms

Credit plays a big part as KKR increases AUM by $6.5 billion
KKR grew its assets under management by 8% over the second quarter, according to the firm’s earnings call, which took place on Thursday.

Investor requirements rather than performance is driving ESG push: Creditflux survey
Only 14% of respondents to Creditflux's global credit ESG survey said performance was the main reason they were adopting envoronmental, social and governance-themed strategies

Clover Tech cov-lite loan blots CLOs after spilling a third of its value
The past week’s biggest declining loan by some way, for printing cartridge maker Clover Technologies (aka 4L Technology), is a worry for CLO portfolios as some 21 managers hold the name, according to CLO-i

Calpers misses returns target despite fixed income outperformance
California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) has missed its annual investment target despite strong performance from its fixed income portfolio, which was its top performer  

CLOs are pricing with an acronym premium rather than an illiquidity premium

John Popp of Credit Suisse Asset Management takes our credit quiz

US CLO managers see positives as docs include negative notation language to ease move to new reference rate
Europe might be making progress, but US CLO managers are less than preoccupied with the looming transition away from US dollar-Libor based pricing. 

CLO managers lick their wounds with Joerns bankruptcy
Seven CLO managers hold $92.3 million exposure to US healthcare equipment businesses Joerns Woundco Holdings, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday 

Sun Life merges asset management business to create $159 billion division
Sun Life will merge its fixed income businesses - including Prime Advisors, Ryan Labs and Sun Life Institutional Investors - under a new umbrella named SLC Management 

US loan trading: CLO managers on cloud nine after Ultimate Software allocations
CLO managers took down about 27% of Ultimate Software's loans in April, when the cloud operator issued its $2.3 billion first lien term loan due 2026, according to CLO-i

CLO managers process Fusion bankruptcy implications
12 CLO managers hold $185.2 million exposure to the debt of the cloud services company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy 

New kids on the block dominate awards

CLO issuance faces threat amid loan definition dispute
The clash over Millennium Laboratories’ bankruptcy could have ramifications for the CLO market, and it all hinges on the philosophical question: what is a loan?

Cayman Island hopping: EU laws provoke switch in CLO listings
The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange (CSX) is set to become the listing place of choice in 2019 for CLOs put together by US managers — at least, according to a bold prediction by law firm Harneys.

Being fully invested can have a greater impact on IRRs than avoiding 2% defaults annually
The IRR differential can be as much as 3.3% for a fully invested CLO versus one that maintains a 5% cash balance

Doing CLOs is hard work as recovery lags
There’s scrutiny on staffing, structures and, of course, ‘the challenging arb’. But Q4 volatility created opportunity, which led speakers at the Creditflux CLO Symposium to ask for more