Beneath the triple C: CLOs benefit as upgrades make for lighter triple C buckets
For the first time since the sell off in March last year, downgrades to triple C have come to a near-standstill

"Three CLOs issued in 2021 have included triple C baskets of 20%"
Big triple C buckets helped mid market CLO issuers in 2020 and the trend is for even bigger allowances this year

Fund performance: assortment of funds step up
Seven categories are represented in this month’s top 10, making it the most diverse since February 2020

Ucits at a glance: Advent and Algebris lead the pack again
Ucits funds saw the brighter side of February, as 80% of funds achieved a positive return

Credit hedge funds (April 2021)
Monthly credit hedge fund tables

Sandalwood funds of credit funds outperform in February
Credit funds of funds came out on top in February, a month characterised by the sell off in US treasuries

"CLO managers who struck the right balance in 2020 are more easily able to reset their deals"
CLO managers were re-evaluated during the pandemic, and outperformers can expect to see benefits this year

Creditflux and Debtwire unveil CLO stressed and distressed market analysis
The first edition of the CLO Distressed Roundup, a joint-report by Creditflux and Debtwire, takes a deep dive into the distressed and stressed loans held by CLOs as of December. Our report shows CLO portfolios are 10.2% stressed and 4.17% distressed, lower than not only the nadir of the pandemic in May, but also before the pandemic

Cairn fills CLO gap by assigning bigger role to loan portfolio manager
Cairn Capital has given CLO portfolio manager responsibilities to a loan portfolio manager, following the departure of CLO portfolio manager Marcus Knight earlier this year

CLO naysayers have made arb and cov-lite into dirty words — that should now change
Recent performance has shown that cov-lite loans and challenging arb don’t spell doom for CLOs 

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

European CLO and loan spreads jostle in tight race
New issue CLO spreads have tightened so sharply in Europe that market participants are questioning how long the process can continue. 

Credit funds at a glance (March 2021)
A round-up of fundraising and people moves

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

Credit hedge funds (March 2021)
Monthly credit hedge fund tables

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  

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

The tide has turned… the solution for investors is to move into floating rate loans
2020 was the year of fixed-rate bonds, but treasury curves are steepening and demand for loans is heating up

At least 2020 wasn’t dreadful for CLOs
Last year’s downturn was another in which CLOs survived and in many cases thrived as active management and Libor floors helped managers deliver 13%-plus returns to equity

Early 2021 moves open up CLO and credit curve dislocations
Fund managers are keeping a close watch on credit curves as sharp moves since the start of December have forced relative value to shift between corporate bonds, CDS, CLOs and loans. This has put CDS curve steepeners in focus but, conversely, CLO flattening appears likely.

US banks embrace CLOs again to drive spread compression
The three big US bank-buyers of senior CLO tranches — Citi, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo — all returned to the mar-ket as investors in January after sitting out for much of 2020

Redding Ridge equity covers at 116 for new European CLO record
Redding Ridge Asset Management set a new record on Wednesday as €5.2 million of RRE 4, a 2020 vintage CLO, traded in the secondary CLO market with a cover of 115.8

CLO managers face ramping challenges as inflation risk rises
A mix of inflation worries and pandemic uncer-tainty is pushing up loan prices and causing CLO managers to struggle to construct new portfolios