Dislocation and costly payment debacle highlight loan tech lag
Coronavirus-led dislocation in the leveraged loan market, as well as a bank’s recent claims of human error in making a large loan payment, underscore the industry’s need to embrace long-overdue efficiency improvements

Hema and Matalan deliverable lists outline payouts for CDS
Only one bond looks to be deliverable into a credit event auction to settle Hema CDS contracts, while two notes will be deliverable into Matalan CDS contracts

Ensco CDS leap wider on credit event trigger
CDS contracts referencing Ensco International, a Houston based subsidiary of offshore driller Valaris, have shot wider after the Americas Determinations Committee ruled the company has triggered a bankruptcy credit event

HY rallies as curve steepening picks up
Credit spreads may have normalised since the March/April peaks of the coronavirus sell-off, but relative value investors are still finding a wide array of trading dislocations beneath the headline numbers

Financial CDS move points to relative value boost
The credit derivatives market could take an important step towards greater versatility with the 21 September roll, as participants again consider whether to begin including financial names in the CDX IG investment grade index

Credit hedge funds (September 2020)
Monthly credit hedge fund tables

Ucits at a glance: Five funds lift YTD returns above 5%
Five funds have managed to pull their year to date figures above 5%; Loomis Sayles (7.50%), Algebris (5.82%), Pictet (5.53%), Amundi (5.36%) and Advent (5.11%)

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

Fund performance: Almost a third of credit funds reach positive YTD returns
July has been a successful month for many credit funds, despite the recovery peaking in May and June

CLO funds top rankings, but still have ground to make up
CLOs may have taken a hammering in March but, for the fourth consecutive month, funds that invest in these assets dominate our ranking of the top performing credit funds

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

Past returns: Trying a different route to Balliol
Five years ago in Creditflux we reported on Numen Capital absorbing credit hedge fund manager Balliol Capital

Hema and Matalan auctions set as DC ponders Ensco credit event
Dates have been set for credit event auctions to settle two constituent defaults in iTraxx Crossover — the first to hit the European on-the-run index in almost two years

Push tighter takes credit indices back to pre-March levels
Credit markets are hitting new tights this week, with European spreads today following the example set by the US on Monday

Valaris and Ensco posed to DC as bankruptcy credit events
Valaris and its subsidiary Ensco International Incorporated have been proposed to the Americas Determinations Committee as bankruptcy credit events after the group filed for chapter 11 protection in August

Credit fundraising: distressed keeps in favour but CLO ETFs emerge
Five months into global lockdown and distressed debt funds are still proving popular, but several managers have found success pitching other types of credit strategies

Europcar hits bumps on the road less travelled
A rough road for Europcar this week has taken its bond and CDS spreads back towards the outer reaches, setting the French car rental firm apart from a general improvement in fortunes for names at the wider end of the market

BlueCrest goes live on CDSClear with index trade
Fund manager BlueCrest has signed up to LCH clearing service CDSClear and has run its first index trade through the central clearing counterparty

US financial CDS basket plans dropped for September
Plans to develop trading of US financial CDS have hit a second set-back, after several CDX IG committee members said they are not ready to begin including these in the index at the September roll

Credit hits new tights as US covid treatment fuels hope
Credit markets are starting the week on a strong tone much as they traded on Friday, as optimism for a US approved coronavirus treatment and the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole virtual meeting on Thursday outweighed concern about rising European covid-19 cases

Hema triggers failure-to-pay credit event
Hema, the Dutch retailer, has triggered a failure to pay credit event, the EMEA Determinations Committee has ruled - making it the second default this month to dent the iTraxx Crossover index and its tranches

High yield inflows return as appetite moves to long end
A heavy slant in preference for investment grade credit has been underscored by high grade funds recording their 20th week of inflows in a row, but high yield funds are also back to positive flow for the first time in three weeks on returning European appetite

Changes in scope for CDS indices and tranches ahead of roll
Structural changes look to be afoot globally for CDS indices and tranches ahead of the September roll, with IHS Markit weighing amendments to products in all three traded regions

Hema credit event question posits second Crossover default this month
Hema, the Dutch retailer, has been posed as a failure to pay credit event to the Determinations Committee, raising the possibility of a second default in the on-the-run iTraxx Crossover index

Matalan credit event ruling draws heavily on precedents, says DC
A bankruptcy credit event ruling on Matalan - the first this year in a European index - was a close call and relied heavily on several precedent credit events, the EMEA Determinations Committee has said