Europe

The average AAA note coupon of 103 basis points above Libor widened from 98.4 in March, which had been the tightest CLO spread level in approximately five years.

The €300 million Taurus 2018-1 also finances Italian retail assets that the Partners Group, based in Switzerland, purchased from the Blackstone Group in February.

All of the loans in the £206.6 million deal were funded by institutional investors; the transaction allows these institutions to exit their investments by pooling loans into collateral for bonds.

GCO Finance, a joint venture between AGCO Corp. and DLL, a unit of Rabobank, is marketing its $896.55 million of bonds backed by agricultural and construction loans and leases.

After the second-busiest quarter for primary European CLO issuance to start 2018, a two-week April lull in the market was ended with deal pricings by Intermediate Capital and Investcorp.

With no more concerns about triggering risk retention on its large pile of older deals, Blackstone is dusting off CLO portfolios that have long been eligible for a refi makeover.

Moody's, S&P and DBRS take divergent views of riskiness of €500 Driver Italia One; key concerns are the concentration of loans with balloon payments and lack of recourse to cars being financed.

However the collateral will total at least £370.4 million (US$424.5 million), including a £62.7 million prefunding account; the weighted average coupon of the collateral is 4%.

The U.S. CLO manager breaks the ice with its first euro-denominated deal, which priced Friday and will close in May when it is about 75% ramped up.

The €413.5 million BlackRock European CLO V is the fourth euro-denominated CLO to launch this month, and asset manager's first since BlackRock Euro CLO IV priced in November.