Credit funds at a glance (October 2020)
A round-up of fundraising and people moves

Fund performance: A third of funds reach positive territory in 2020
August has been another successful month for the CLO category as seven of the top 10 funds invest primarily in CLOs

Credit fundraising: managers build homes for real estate credit funds
The “largest ever real estate credit fund” was one of the fundraising highlights last month as Blackstone’s Real Estate Debt Strategies IV fund reached $8 billion on its final close

Dealers cut Pizza Express final price to shape of pizza
An auction to settle Pizza Express CDS ended up paying out almost 100% to buyers of protection, with dealers driving the final price even lower than they had initially bid

Morgan Stanley expands index tranche trading with London hire
Morgan Stanley has added to its index tranche trading prowess by hiring a London-based market maker for the asset class as well as credit options

Vontobel hires ex-Pictet bond manager as head of fixed income boutique
Vontobel Asset Management has announced the appointment of an ex-Pictet bond manager as head of its $25 billion fixed income boutique

Pizza Express auction leaves protection sellers with just pineapple
An auction to settle Pizza Express CDS looks set to leave protection sellers with little solace, after the first round of bidding indicated a high pay-out on contracts referencing the UK-based restaurant chain

Europe/US high yield gap re-opens with roll, but raises fair value questions
The semi-annual roll of US high yield index CDX HY has once again put daylight between it and European counterpart iTraxx Europe. But the new series has come in tighter than some market participants had anticipated

European high yield converges on US as credit pushes wider
A worrisome week is ending with spreads pushing to new local wides and underperformance of European high yield versus US credit

Seaport hires veteran for European loan trading push
Seaport Global, an investment bank focused on capital markets, has hired a leveraged finance veteran as a managing director in Emea loans trading

LP round up: $5 billion flows to credit as private market allocations increase
Global institutional investors allocated nearly $5 billion to credit funds this week, according to documents seen by Creditflux

Spreads gap wider as slowdown fears sink in
Concern over the gathering coronavirus second wave, economic slowdown and the need for further central bank interventions has pushed credit spreads sharply wider, with yesterday’s US late session downturn spilling over to Asia and Europe

Pizza Express auction date set with two bonds on initial list
Pizza Express 2014-version CDS contracts will be settled at auction on 1 October, following the UK food retailer’s triggering of a failure-to-pay credit event this month

Barings and PGIM win loan and structured credit mandates as pension puts £2.7bn in credit
The firms will manage global syndicated loans, securitised credit, emerging market debt and global high yield credit for Border to Coast Pension Partnership's £2.7 billion ($3.43 billion) multi-asset credit fund 

Banks regain composure to lead rallying charge
Financial names are among today's outperformers, reversing the trend of the early part of this week, as credit spreads return tighter

Curves steepen as roll shifts risk from the front end
CDS index curves have steepened with the September roll, with the reformulation of iTraxx and European portfolios having a noticeable impact on the front end of the curve

Index roll brings sea change for US/Europe relative value
The roll of CDS indices to new series has shifted relative value measures between Europe and the US, with CDX indices trading in a tighter context to their new iTraxx counterparts

Fallen angels and financials feel heat as CDS indices roll
CDS indices are rolling into new contracts today, with outgoing series of iTraxx Europe and Crossover widening sharply from the market’s open on technical as well as fundamental factors

Green credit advocate launches research body
Stockholm-based portfolio manager and green credit advocate Ulf Erlandsson has today announced the launch of research body Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII)

Europcar slumps closer to default pricing in bonds and CDS
Europcar, the French car hire firm, is heading fast towards recovery-only levels with CDS and bond prices reflecting deeper distress

Credit retreats from tights as central banks offer reality check
European credit is following Asia wider today, picking up from where the US left off yesterday as the Federal Reserve vowed to keep overnight rates near zero for the coming years

Crossover dips below 300bp as retailers leave the basket
The removal of defaulting constituents Hema  and Matalan from iTraxx Crossover has helped take the index to its tightest prints since the start of the coronavirus sell-off

Matalan auction initial bids point to lower than expected CDS pay out
Early bidding in a credit event auction today to settle CDS referencing UK retailer Matalan indicates the final result will be higher than predicted by recent five-year quotes but roughly in line with modelled recoveries

PGIM hires for newly created ESG fixed income research role
PGIM has appointed a former Allianz official into the newly created role of head of environmental, social & governance (ESG) research for its fixed income division

Noble and Hema produce disparate pay outs for CDS
This week has brought the high and lows of CDS settlement, with Noble Corporation bestowing an ultra low high pay-out for protection buyers after Hema protection sellers suffered less of a hit than was modelled by assumed recoveries