Banks predict record-breaking year ahead
Consensus figures generated from outlook reports by five banks suggest 2025 will be another strong year for CLO issuance. But last year, their estimates were well below the actual numbers

Slow and steady wins the day
It’s often thought CLO managers add value to their deals via high volume trading strategies. The data shows this can be true — but on average, top performing CLOs are less actively traded

Triple C assets and capital preservation
In the US and Europe, better performing CLOs tend to hold fewer triple C assets. But even so, a third of top performing CLOs in the US have more than 6% of their assets in the triple C bucket.

Static deals stand out in Europe
European CLO equity in redeemed deals has delivered excellent returns. But managers might be surprised to discover that static deals are the region’s stars

Reset or refinancing?
The CLO market is expecting another strong half year for both resets and refinancings. But what factors are leading equity investors to prefer resetting deals over refinancing them?

European managers struggle to add alpha
Before the COVID pandemic, European CLOs comfortably outperformed the Morningstar European Euro-Denominated Loan Index. Since then, alpha has declined for many managers

Older CLOs show they’ve still got it
The CLO primary market is vibrant — but some older vintages are still performing very well. We look at the equity performance of US BSL CLOs that have exited their reinvestment period

Do defaults predict equity returns?
At first glance, recently redeemed European CLOs show some sort of correlation between final IRR and the number of defaults in their portfolio. But what other factors affect performance?

How many CLOs will be reset?
Tightening liability spreads aren’t just driving record new CLO issuance this year — they’re also triggering a wave of resets and refinancings in the US, especially for broadly syndicated CLOs

How many CLOs will be called this year?
Most CLOs are called when loan market prices are high. Distributions and equity NAV are also important, and they suggest that over 30 2017 and 2018 deals are now ripe for redemption

Ask the market where spreads are heading
Nothing brings the CLO market together like a good moan about the state of the arb. But according to our data, the arbitrage for new-issue US CLOs has remained in the same range for years. 

European CLOs win out against US deals
Last month, our analysis explored the performance of US CLOs that were previously reset. We found that they delivered higher distributions than deals which weren’t reset, with the exception of the 2017 and 2018 vintages (Creditflux September 2023 — Do resets help CLOs perform better?). This article expands that analysis to the European market, and compares the performance of US BSL and EU CLO equity tranches.

Do resets help CLOs perform better?
As the market for CLO resets opens, we look at the performance of deals that were previously reset, and find they soon deliver higher distributions than those deals that were not reset

Question your assumptions
Valuing CLO paper is complicated, and loan prepayments are one of the trickiest parts. When pricing a new issue CLO, the market generally assumes that 15-20% of loans will prepay their principal annually. This prepayment rate is important because it essentially determines the pace at which a CLO’s rated debt is paid off after the reinvestment period, when the CLO pays down its own principal.

Heading tighter into uncertainty
Tightening loan spreads are making the job of a CLO manager harder in both the US and Europe. But credit volatility could be on the horizon