All types of financing will have to incorporate ESG risks and use their real economy influence
Fund managers can no longer ignore, postpone or hide from measures to tackle climate change

Cessation of activity mid-December is an opportunity to switch off… and let the mind wander
Welshcake is grateful for a lull in credit markets. The downtime has inspired him to dream up a CLO play

CLO collateral managers who are able to update their documents could gain warf advantage
Moody’s is reviewing its approach to warf. Changes could boost managers’ ability to trade

Questions will need answering about where a manager's fiduciary responsibility lies
A university lecturer gives Welshcake a shock with a CLO presentation that points to shady trading games

They should have followed Revlon's Double Twist mascara slogan of 2009: "It's worth a double take"
Blockchain might not eradicate all problems in credit, but it should reduce human error

They said it: "We’re going to change the world of finance"
Big ambitions in blockchain

Points up front: How much do I owe you?
Payment systems in the credit industry had a bad August

They said it: "Imagine a garden party and all of a sudden a big wasp shows up"
On Creditflux’s US CLO webinar last month, Napier Park’s head of US CLO investments Serhan Secmen described the March sell-off as a garden party

They said it: Can I be a bond investor and invest in Netflix?
The response of a loan portfolio manager after we asked where should loan investors park their cash?

Points up front: Channelling Twain, Agent Smith and Mike Tyson
Lockdown can adversely affect one’s grasp of reality, and for credit portfolio managers this has manifested itself in a penchant for quoting famous (sometimes fictional) figures

Some managers calculated their CLOs were passing OC tests, only to find them failing the next day
Corporate credit downgrade storms have been weathered before, but this one has come out of season

Past returns: Death by triple Cs? A step too far
15 months ago in Creditflux we reported that corporate credit downgrades, rather than defaults, were the biggest problem facing CLO portfolio managers

Points up front: Blame it on capitalism
You know it’s a tough month for returns when a hedge fund manager quotes Lenin and laments that capitalism and globalisation have failed to distribute wealth efficiently

Investors need to ask: can my asset manager survive the crisis?

You need a balanced portfolio that’s ready for calculated risk taking — so consider a barbell approach
Investors can’t afford to be too conservative as they prepare for the end of the cycle

Don’t get too comfortable. The truth is there are hundreds of things that could be catalysts for a sell-off
Just because there’s no obvious sign of a sell-off, doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. Often, market moves defy logic

‘Buying the dip’ is going to be a poor investment strategy when the next downturn comes
The next credit downturn will be shallower but more prolonged than the last, so what works will be different, too

Points up front: There are lies, damn lies and awards pitches
We’re hearing empty boasts, trash talking of their rivals and no shortage of promises that will absolutely be delivered.

Points up front: Loan deal with 23 takes Griezmann to Barcelona
Soccer financing firm 23 Capital has been adding credit experts to its team and now has a CLO specialist captaining its capital markets effort, with former Guggenheim Securities co-head of ABS/CLO syndication Sreesha Vaman joining last month. The squad already features credit portfolio managers Sam Filer (ex-BMS Finance), David O’Connor (Mizuho) and Ardeshir Sorabjee (Deutsche Bank).

Points up front: Benefits of being unethical
Investing ethically is increasingly becoming part of a credit manager’s mandate, with environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies all the rage.

Tourists have turned high yield into a sketchier neighbourhood… IG credit could be the answer
Using CDS to exploit roll-down in IG credit can generate good returns even in a low-rate environment

PE hold periods have shrunk but fast acquisitions can lead to botched integrations
Buyout multiples are likely to stay high – but moving fast and specialising can help firms make money

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

Just because there have always been loan fees doesn’t mean they are the right way of doing things
Scrapping loan transfer costs of up to €3,500 per transaction is a bridge Europe should cross for the sake of liquidity