Global CLO trading lab: bank sells $834 million triple As in quarterly reallocation as hedge fund trades CLO equity
Thursday’s secondary CLO market was the busiest of 2021, with over $1 billion of US CLOs on offer. This featured an enormous b-wic worth $834.3 million, where sources have told Creditflux of the bank behind the aucton. While a large credit hedge fund is said to have sold out of control CLO equity 

CLO Census latest: voting crosses 200 as range of dealers lead in CLO origination
CLO market participants are placing value on the specialist service that dealers are providing, according to Creditflux’s CLO Census, with three different banks leading the way for US CLO execution, structuring and syndication. A silimar trend is in play in Europe

Everyone’s ramping

CLO pipeline: Birch Grove and Fort Washington dish out first 2021 deals as Carlyle goes for sevenths
CLO investors can feast on a range of deals in the new issue market over the next month. 

It's all relative: IG index drifts wide of 50bp as European CLO triple Bs outperform
US investment grade credit has been an underperformer in the last few weeks with CDX IG trading north of 50 basis points again. But European CLO triple Bs are looking strong while there is a stronger bid for two- to three-year paper in the US

Credit Rendezvous: And breathe...
The unanimous verdict is that credit spreads will be moving wider – they have to. But the difficulty credit fund managers face is predicting when the next sell-off comes and how sharp it will be. In the Q3 instalment of Creditflux’s Credit Rendezvous, the over-riding message from portfolio managers is that there’s little point in taking on too much risk. The report features the views of prominent credit figures including Paul Horvath (Orchard), Himani Trivedi (Nuveen), Ronnie Jaber (Onex), Graham Rainbow (Alcentra) and Michelle Russell-Dowe (Schroders). The report looks at 14 segments of the market including CLOs, direct lending, leveraged loans, distressed debt and credit derivatives.  

It's all relative: CDX HY touches record tights but junior US CLO tranches leak wider
Credit spreads are marching tighter, but someone forgot to tell the CLO market. European and US CDS spreads have moved in step with each other for the most part with investment grade and high yield tightening 4-6% in the last week, whereas CLOs have been losing ground

US CLO managers with eye on Europe opt for risk retention
The US CLO market celebrated as domestic risk retention requirements were overturned in February 2018, but issuers are increasingly taking down 5% of their CLOs voluntarily with a view to satisfying European risk retention rules

Credit Rendezvous: ready and waiting
In Creditflux's quarterly review of credit, portfolio managers tell us that Inflation is likely to nudge higher but they are optimistic because dispersion will pick up and windows of volatility will emerge, rather than elongated phases of stress 

BofA and Citi unveil multi-dealer platform for CLOs and loans
Bank of America and Citi have joined forces with plans for a multi-dealer CLO and loan platform which will cover trading, data and analytics

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

A brighter year ahead
Panellists on Creditflux’s CLO webinar described how CLO spreads are close to historic tights, ESG is entering the docs and managers have more flexibility with work-outs than ever before

CLOs at a glance (March 2021)
A listing of CLOs that have priced in the last month

Answering the “what if?” question
CLOs can be complex, and efficiently calculating trading scenarios even more complex. But new tools are available to help managers quickly model hypothetical scenarios

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  

Reset triple A tightening outstrips new CLOs as investors beg to roll
CLO triple A tranches are pricing tighter in the reset market than new issues in both the US and Europe, due to a quirk of market technical dynamics

Goldman prints infrastructure debt-backed CLO for London and Seoul-based firms
Goldman Sachs has issued a $233.3 million CLO designed to finance infrastructure projects. The deal, named Sequoia Infrastructure Funding I, names London-based Sequoia Investment Management Company as investment advisor and Seoul-headquarterd Shinhan Alternative Investment Management as collateral manager

It's all relative: CLO spreads explore record tights as credit indices hit impasse
CLO spreads are grinding to ever tighter levels, despite a flattish week for credit in which corporate credit indices have ended up more or less unchanged

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

CLOs at a glance (February 2021)
A listing of CLOs that have priced in the last month

It's all relative: senior CLO tranches tighten 18% in Europe as CDS indices sit out rally

Credit Rendezvous: heading for homes
Fund managers in structured credit, real assets and distressed are bullish on the prospects for residential housing in 2021. Elsewhere, niche royalty-based strategies are in favour and although a CLO repricing wave is expected, it may not be easy to execute resets. For more, read our 13-page quarterly report on credit. 

CLO 2021 outlook: back to the 'old' normal with volumes, spreads and structures to revert to pre-covid levels
Predictions went out the window this year because, well, who in December 2019 could have foreseen a pandemic devastating lives and wrecking financial markets? But the emergence of vaccines to combat the threat of the coronavirus has spurred a rally in credit over the last month. And CLO researchers expect a resurgence in 2021 with US new issue CLO volumes predicted to hit the $80-110 billion range, according to reports analysed by Creditflux.

CLOs at a glance (January 2021)
A listing of CLOs that have priced in the last month

It's all relative: Euro CLO mezz rallies to follow month-long IG/HY compression
European credit suffered this week with Brexit talks between the UK and the EU dragging on and both sides conceding that a trade deal is unlikely to be reached by Sunday’s deadline. But European CLO tranches have held up reasonably well with mezzanine spreads tightening by almost 13% in December