Vontobel names fixed income trading head amid four senior hires
Vontobel Asset Management has appointed four senior hires to its team including a newly created role of head of fixed income trading

Moving fast pays off for hedge funds
2020 was an up and down year in credit, and credit hedge fund managers had to move quickly to capture opportunities from the dislocations that inevitably opened up

Fund performance: CLO funds pick up where they left off
New year, same funds leading the way with CLO strategies the top performers in January

Ucits at a glance: CIFC nears positive 12-month returns
Ucits funds have started 2021 on a quiet note as 72% of funds achieved a positive return

High yield fund sets pace with 22% return in January
Wasserstein Debt Opportunities Fund has set the early pace for credit hedge funds in 2021 after registering a 21.7% gain in January. This builds on the high yield fund’s success last year and takes 12-month returns to 40.44%. 

It's all relative: CLOs march tighter as macro traders open positive CDS skews
Credit default swaps are back near where they started the year after giving up their early-February gains amid a rise in government bonds. CDS curves steepened over the past month and macro hedging has left indices trading with positive skews. But CLOs paint a calmer picture in which spreads have inched tighter  

Renewed energy boosts credit as relief rally resumes
Energy companies are performing well and credit indices have resumed their push tighter after a strong surge inwards Monday, outpacing moves in other parts of the financial market

AlbaCore adds distressed hire among raft of new arrivals
AlbaCore Capital Group has added four hires to its investment team in recent weeks, taking its total headcount to 46

It's all relative: CLOs are lagging no more, as Carlyle deal drags market tighter
“CLOs are lagging” has been a much repeated refrain over the last nine months. But Carlyle Group has this week produced a US CLO that has dragged spreads to their tightest point in three years so that, rather than comparing CLOs to pre-covid levels, they should be assessed against early 2018

Search firm highlights lack of diversity across Euro credit
A report on diversity within the corporate credit industry has shed light on the imbalances that persist

It's all relative: senior CLO tranches tighten 18% in Europe as CDS indices sit out rally

Credit touches November levels as nerves fray on France and Fed
Fears of a third national lockdown in France and the risk of disappointment from Wednesday's US Federal Reserve meeting have pushed credit wider along with a sell off in stocks

Credit Rendezvous: heading for homes
Fund managers in structured credit, real assets and distressed are bullish on the prospects for residential housing in 2021. Elsewhere, niche royalty-based strategies are in favour and although a CLO repricing wave is expected, it may not be easy to execute resets. For more, read our 13-page quarterly report on credit. 

Alcentra co-CIO for liquid credit set to leave this month
A high profile figure in the US CLO business is leaving Alcentra

Europcar CDS auction shocks protection buyers with zero pay-out
Wednesay's auction to settle Europcar Mobility Group CDS has left protection buyers on the company with nothing to show for their investments and hedges, after dealers produced an unexpected 100% recovery on contracts due to a technical mismatch in bids and orders

Europcar sets course for high recovery in 2021's first credit event auction
An auction to settle CDS referencing Europcar Mobility Group has generated an initial market midpoint of 73.5 cents, implying the pay-out to protection buyers could be only 26.5 cents - much lower than five-year CDS contracts had implied

Beneath the triple C: 13 CLO loans take a dive but defaults subside to a ripple
22 corporate debt issuers were downgraded to triple C or below in November and December by Moody’s or S&P, out of which 13 can be found in CLO portfolios  – hurting $4.55 billion of US CLO loans, €1.87 billion of European CLO portfolios and almost $80 million of middle market CLOs loans, according to CLO-i

LP round-up: investors gift private debt and leveraged loan RFPs over holiday season
2020 ended on a strong note with four institutional investors increasing asset allocation to private debt or initiating private debt and leveraged loan searches. ArrowMark, Banner Ridge, BBAM, HIG Whitehorse, Monroe and Rialto were also awarded mandates

High yield has primary bonds more than Georgia on mind in third day of underperformance
European high yield credit is on a run of underperformance as the first signs of primary market bond issuance appear, with spreads widening for a third day straight against improvement in other asset classes

Fund performance: CLOs look to continue recovery with end of the year in sight
CLO funds claim the majority of positions in our top 10

It's all relative: Euro CLO mezz rallies to follow month-long IG/HY compression
European credit suffered this week with Brexit talks between the UK and the EU dragging on and both sides conceding that a trade deal is unlikely to be reached by Sunday’s deadline. But European CLO tranches have held up reasonably well with mezzanine spreads tightening by almost 13% in December

Credit sell off gathers pace ahead of Brexit crunch day
With both sides in the EU-UK negotiations conceding that trade talks are most likely to conclude on Sunday without an agreement, credit is again a big underperformer today as more longs cut and run while hedging picks up

Europe leads corporate credit rally, but US outperforms in CLOs
iTraxx Crossover has been the CDS market's outperformer this week, tightening over 30 basis points, or 11.4%, to trade at 235bp today. But in the CLO market, US deals have come out on top thanks to a BlackRock CLO that priced its double Bs at some of the tightest levels this year

ECB stimulus hopes bolster high yield outperformance
Spread compression has picked up again, with European high yield taking the lead as expectations mount for another round of European Central Bank stimulus at its meeting next week

Europcar posed as failure to pay credit event
Europcar Mobility Group has been proposed to the Emea Determinations Committee as a failure to pay credit event, following the French vehicle hire firm's announcement of a financial restructuring