CLOs

The original $312 million triple-A notes are being replaced with six separately priced Class A note tranches, including two fixed-rate securities classes

CLO securities pay out interest pegged to the three-month London interbank offered rate, but loans used as collateral are increasingly switching to one-month Libor and the spread between the two benchmarks has widened significantly.

The $278.3 million RCMF 2018-FL2 also has unusually heavy exposure to apartment buildings, offices and industrial properties that are either vacant or have low occupancy levels, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

The $71.7 billion-asset manager is replacing notes from a 2015-vintage CLO that had been squeezed on asset quality prior to its October 2017 post-reinvestment period.

The Dallas-based money manager has launched a UCITS that invests in both U.S. and European loans, investment-grade CLO securities, and obligations and other kinds of structured products.

The $52 billion in year-to-date volume in resets of collateralized loan obligations is nearly outpacing new-paper issuance of $53.5 billion, reports LPC.

The new notes are not being distributed proportionally across the capital stack, however; instead the refinancing will result in slightly higher subordination for the senior, triple-A-rated Class A notes.

The holdings demonstrate “resiliency over several credit cycles, with low realized principal losses and robust returns for CLO equity,” managers say.

The .. also named David Williams as head of U.S. global structured credit solutions capital markets; both executives have been with the firm for over a decade.

Changes that federal regulators are contemplating to the Volcker Rule could pave the way for CLOs to resume investing in high yield bonds, which they currently cannot do without putting themselves off limits to banks.

The volume of "true" new-issue CLOs (excluding reissued deals of existing collateralized loan portfolios) have declined for four consecutive months after February's high-water 2018 mark of $14.7 billion. But JPMorgan maintains its $115 billion-$130 billion annualized forecast.

Exempting CLOs from “skin in the game” rules allows managers to unload more of the risk in these transaction; increasingly, they are doing this by issuing a second tranche of speculative- grade notes.

Default risks in retail and media leveraged loans have also risen to the forefront of CLO manager concerns, which a few years ago were centered on oil and gas exposure.

Despite concerns about credit quality, the only constraints on new issuance appear to be the supply of loan collateral and the capacity of warehouse facilities and rating agencies.

Issuance is strong and defaults remain low; yet CLO market participants are concerned about heavy debt loads of the companies they invest in, as well as the lack of investor protections.

Sean Solis has been a partner at Dechert since 2014, advising collateralized loan obligation managers and arrangers through the hoops on U.S. and European risk-retention regulations.

A continued "oversupply" of CLO deals, along with expectations for new debut or returning managers in the absence of risk-retention requirements, is expected to keep activity flowing.

The closed-end fund, a major investor in CLO equity. directed resets of four deals that it controls in the first quarter; this helped end a yearlong slide in its weighted average portfolio yield.

The commercial real estate lender, which is controlled by Canadian and Singapore sovereign wealth funds, included some unusual features in the deal, such as a two-year revolving period.