Tariffs kill off year-long CLO boom
The global impact on CLOs of President Trump’s tariffs was plain as volatility increased and spreads blew out. But managers helped keep US issuance steady with print-and-sprint deals

Records tumble in fantastic February

Founding five get off to a famous start
This is the story of how the five founding members of the CLO team came together at CIBC, and how they have grown from nothing to 28 transactions in less than a year

Taking stock after a long hot summer
As fall approaches, the global CLO and leveraged loan markets are in a strong position. But will records set in 2021 tumble?  We compare the numbers — and find out what the market thinks

Reset focus shifts to pre-COVID deals
As spreads tighten, managers are looking to reset CLOs that priced before the onset of the COVID pandemic — even if this slightly increases the deals’ weighted average cost of capital.

Relating arbitrage, issuance and equity
Day one arbitrage remains a key metric for CLO equity investors. But how does the US BSL CLO arb today compare with historical averages? And does the figure impact deals’ equity returns?

Rapid growth shows middle market CLO no longer BSL’s little brother
Middle market CLOs, the once niche sector that securitises private credit loans, is seeing a growth spurt. What was a junior partner to the much larger BSL world is now a sizeable entity of its own.

Full steam ahead in the US and Europe
We’re now six months into 2024, and according to our latest league tables, the CLO engine shows no sign of slowing down, as spreads grind tighter and resets get underway in Europe

CLOs at a glance
New CLOs this month

We made the most of a tricky situation
The contrast between 2021 and the following 12 months could not have been starker. But although some heavy hitters remained on the sidelines, 94 US CLO managers priced new deals in 2022

Can someone call the triple A? We’ve stalled
CLO issuers are in need of AAA roadside assistance. Despite the emergence of new buyers, a lack of senior CLO investors — particularly US banks — has brought the primary market to a halt  

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  

Arb work pays off
With day-one arbitrage alone delivering projected CLO cash-on-cash returns of 20-25%, 2021 may have been the best year ever for equity investors — at least until CLO spreads began to widen  

CLO managers show respect to their elders
Alongside lucrative new issues, managers also make time for refinancing and resetting old deals. Our data shows that, in 2021, mid-sized firms were the most effective at this balancing act

CLO wormhole opens as deal pricing blurs
The CLO prints you see today might have happened a month ago. No, we’re not travelling back in time. Instead, a trend toward locking in senior notes a month early is skewing market pricing

Coronavirus tiers up old ranking script
Forget everything you thought you knew about CLO manager tiers. Apollo and Blackstone are mainstays, but smaller, more nimble issuers are finding new ways to stand out from the crowd

Lighten up, these are due an upgrade
CLO triple C buckets were overflowing last year, but the average exposure is now 7.3%. That is still close to trigger levels, but CLO managers are relaxed, as further loan upgrades are on the horizon

Woah, we’re halfway there
Judging by the 2020 vintage, European CLO overlap is 50%. But varied approaches to holding bonds and the many loans managers turn down mean there are ways for issuers to outperform

CLOs come up smelling of roses
The coronavirus crisis could have cut back 10 years of CLO market progress, but investors’ foresight, trading chops and flexibility meant many saw their strategies blossom during 2020  

CLOs wheel and deal as overlap increases
2020 CLOs are a different breed to any other vintage. But this cohort features an overlap of almost 40% as CLO issuers have been forced to focus almost entirely on secondary market loans

Waiting for afters
Day one arb remains important, but last year there were opportunities aplenty in the secondary market, which put the onus on printing CLOs and waiting for the day after non-call periods expired

We were battered in 2020 — but we weren’t beaten
The CLO industry has survived a year blighted by covid-19. We talk to portfolio managers about the strengths of CLOs and preparations for what was expected to be a ‘cataclysmic’ recession

It’s been a while — how’s tricks?

Managers weigh up matters of principal
CLO managers that were able to avoid OC traps made double-digit equity distributions in Q2, despite the headwinds. But these firms tended not to be among those that built the most par

Loan slump brings managers closer
A 19% slide in new US loan volumes last year has left CLO managers with fewer options in the primary market, and portfolio overlap between US managers has increased to 35.3% on average