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

"IG investors might want to rethink the instrument, but they need not fear rising rates just yet"
In his latest column for Creditflux, Cheyne's Duncan Sankey writes that the sharp rise in 10-year US treasuries could be positive for investment grade investors, but value is in CDS rather than bonds 

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

"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

"Watch the IG credit curve — we may see steepening of IG 5s10s and flattening of 10s30s"
Stimulus measures are supporting short tenors, and pension demand for 30-year paper is strong, so 10-year IG credit may have few buyers

"We have to think about the influence of social media like Reddit"
Schroders' Michelle Russell-Dowe takes our credit quiz

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

People underestimate the impact they can have with ESG
Muzinich's Kirsten Bode takes our credit quiz

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%. 

Redhedge squeezes relative value out of tight IG bonds
Going outright long investment grade credit is a tough position to be locked into given today’s ultra-tight spreads. But London-based Redhedge has developed a relative value approach to this market in the past four years that aims to be beta-neutral and uses quantitative models to come up with long/short European bond combinations

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  

US private credit default rate drops to 3.6% in Q4: Proskauer
US private credit default rates dropped to 3.6% in the fourth quarter, according to law firm Prokskauer’s Private Credit Default Index

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