Points up front: Diverse? More like reverse
Diverse leadership structures at asset management firms are known to attract institutional investors. But we hear that one CLO manager has taken advantage of this by presenting itself as a diverse organisation

"In 2022, being slow will not be such a bad thing"
St David losing its place as the UK’s smallest city would be a travesty. Replacing Libor might be worse

They said it: "Remove call option from CLO assets and liabilities"
A CLO investor, commenting in Creditflux’s CLO Census, comes up with a drastic way of making CLO cashflows a whole lot easier to model

"CLO equity investors have long accepted basis risk… but an off-market adjustment does not work"
The 26bp adjustment is disrupting the transition away from Libor — but market forces will prevail

Everyone’s ramping

Past returns: Black Diamond riles investors
10 years ago in Creditflux, we reported on lawsuits against Black Diamond Capital Management after it tried to make $45 million of trades in Black Diamond CLO 2005-1 using cash the deal hadn’t yet received

They said it: "Oh, hell no!"
PineBridge Investment portfolio manager Laila Kollmorgen tells the audience at Creditflux’s CLO Symposium that she is unequivocally against increasing triple C limits from 7.5%

Points up front: CLO award-winners love bowing out at the top
Reaching the summit of their profession gives CLO officials the compulsion to move on to pastures new, as evidenced by the Creditflux Manager Awards

Points up front: Risk retention gets less than 5% of airtime
In a sign of how buoyant the CLO market is, risk retention was hardly mentioned at Creditflux’s CLO Symposium. Milbank partner John Goldfinch gave a self-deprecating assessment... 

"Purchasing IG CLO debt was a key driver of success for 1.0 CLOs"
Longer reinvestment periods, the ability to buy IG tranches and improved loan settlements would improve CLOs

"I’m passionate about broader representation within investment teams"
CIP's Leila Donnachy takes our credit quiz 

"If you sat still on a large portfolio of 2019 and 2020 CLOs, it may have shrunk by more than 25%"

Past returns: Prophet’s early CLO redemption
In Creditflux five years ago, we reported that Prophet Capital, the control equity investor in Covenant Credit Partners CLO I, had driven liquidation of the deal

They said it: "The debtor’s [Highland’s] founder, James Dondero, created an elaborate web of approximately 2,000 business entities&qu
Highland’s unsecured creditors break down the company’s corporate structure

"In some ways, CLOs resemble a quirky, cottage industry more than a trillion-dollar market"
CLO volumes outstanding have passed $1 trillion, but index omission and private placements are holding us back

Past returns: Doing DIY CLOs
Five years ago we reported that CLO managers were considering self-arranged CLOs

They said it: "The mantra is doing good and doing well without sacrificing returns"
CarVal on its ESG line of CLOs

Points up front: Writing the book on CMVs
Former Canyon Partners CLO head Dominique Mielle has gone from poring over CLO documentation to writing a novel about her experiences in the credit industry

"I’ve been doing ESG for 27 years; I just didn’t know it"
Apollo's Joe Mornoey takes our credit quiz

"Spacs… what better buyer than someone with a short fuse who needs to get their capital working"
Since the beginning of 2020, more than $191 billion has been raised in spac (special purpose acquisition company) IPOs. This money has such a short fuse — get a deal done in 24 months or management loses the IPO costs it covered — and there has been so much of it, that it has had an impact on the markets

Past returns: Mid market CLOs move into light
Ten years ago in Creditflux, we reported that S&P was reducing shadow ratings after it notified CLO managers it would not assign such ratings to companies with more than $499 million of outstanding debt

They said it: "A lot of value was lost due to CLO window dressing"
"A lot of value was lost due to CLO window dressing"

Point's up front: To have and to hold
The bankruptcy of Highland Capital Management rumbles on. As the case turns messy, a judge has poetically suggested it is like a divorce between the company and its former chief executive officer James Dondero