A clash of views on credit
Recent volatility has shattered any consensus that existed on corporate credit. Buy-side firms, in particular, have been putting forth sharply contrasting views of late

Taking coupons into account
Sara Cecchetti and Antonio Di Cesare show that bond yields and spreads are not good indicators of default risk – and that coupon rate is an important driver of the yield curve

Oaktree makes it three in a row on top of assets under management pile
After a busy first quarter, which saw it raise $3 billion, Oaktree still leads the way in our ranking of credit hedge fund managers by assets

Credit default swaps stop fire sales
Companies with credit default swaps have more liquid bonds and tighter spreads than those that don’t because investors can hold their bonds after a downgrade

Gone but not forgotten
ACA Capital’s spectacular collapse heralded the demise of the monoline business and scattered its employees into jobs right across the credit space

When credit gets ahead of equity
Corporate bonds were regarded as lagging followers of equity markets. But Trace data shows that, in many cases, debt anticipates stock moves

Fine-tuning the momentum signal
Daniel Haesen, Patrick Houweling and Jeroen van Zundert describe an approach that slashes volatility and improves returns in momentum strategies for corporate bonds

CLOs win out in the crisis
Analysis shows that, as an alpha-generating asset class, CLO equity has an edge over hedge funds and private equity since the onset of the global financial crisis

Oh Brothers, where art thou?
Lehman Brothers’ collapse scattered one of the best regarded structured credit teams in the business around the investment banks and hedge funds of the world

Mined in Paris. Forged in London
In Paris, an exclusive university has built a web of well educated and well connected credit traders, sales people and structurers who now circle the financial world

Taking account of ratings migrations
Vivien Brunel describes a way to model credit prices without having to rely on narrow historical data about ratings, and looks at its use in a calculation of incremental risk charge

GoldenTree: all part of the process
Senior staff at GoldenTree Asset Management put much of the firm’s huge success down to “the process”, which sees investments made based on quantifiable targets

Viewpoint - Buy inefficiency
Hildene Capital’s Brett Jefferson and John Scannell explain the merits and perils of trups CDOs

UK: moving away from liquidation
In the UK, voluntary procedures are being used more; liquidation and receivership less. Jennifer Marshall reports

Insolvency - The Netherlands: swift and flexible
Dutch bankruptcy courts can work quickly and are used to cross-border cases

Doing the right thing
Babson Capital is convinced that its fundamentals-based, long-term approach is the proper way to do business. It worked in the last cycle, and this is no time to look for short-term fixes. Facing their biggest test since the product emerged in the late 1990s, many CLO managers seem unsure how to confront an unprecedented decline in par values, soaring triple C buckets, rising defaults and the prospect of junior management fees being cut off. But the team that runs CLOs for one of the biggest and best established US managers has strong views about the right approach.

Brokers: Welcome to the new Street
Wall Street and Canary Wharf are dead. Full-service investment banks are broken. And credit sales people are flocking to a new tier of firms. Laura Jones meets the key players. Rarely has a great industry declined so fast. It was not just the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers last year that marked the end of a particular age for the financial markets. It was also the dramatic fall in risk appetite at the remaining "bulge-bracket" firms and the wholesale exodus of staff.

Stanfield gets back to basics
Credit downturns are nothing new to Stanfield Capital – so it has been preparing for the coming default cycle for some time

Keeping calm in credit
With its major backer sitting on a vast personal fortune, continuing access to cheap leverage and positive returns this year, it’s not surprising that Novator’s credit fund managers are more relaxed than most

Picking winners and timing
Mark Okada is chief investment officer of Highland Capital Management, the credit asset management firm he co-founded with James Dondero

It’s about leverage
For GSC’s US loan team, liquidity is nice. But what really matters is choosing low levered loans and working with the borrowers

Making it short and sweet
Point Clear has delivered stellar returns by staying short and liquid. And it doesn’t plan to change course just because the US authorities have been willing to rescue Bear Stearns

So, where’s the firesale?
Strategies for keeping the SIV wind-down orderly

Seeking alpha high and low
Swiss manager Alpstar is looking to capitaliseon sharp falls in valuations as distress deepens,particularly in leveraged credit. But it sees plenty of undervalued assets too.

Looking for the local angle
After a year of double digit growth, investors in emerging markets local currency debt will have to work harder for returns