Leveraged loans

Private equity firms are hitting the U.S. leveraged loan market at the fastest pace in years to fund shareholder payouts with about $8.6 billion of dividend recapitalization deals launched this month.

The prospective payout is so alluring to investors that they’ve placed three times as many orders as bonds and loans available for sale. That allowed Delta to boost the size of the deal from an original $6.5 billion, enough for the company to rule out the need for any federal aid.

Deals, trends and research in structured finance and asset-backed securities for the week of Sept. 4-10

This year has already seen a glut of corporate failures: there were 177 U.S. bankruptcy filings year-to-date by companies with over $50 million in liabilities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg

There’s been a flurry of interest in so-called fallen angels recently as investors seek alternatives to the ultra-low yields on high-grade debt.

The industry’s turmoil, including 'strategic options' being pursued by corporate debt obligors like Transocean and Seadrill, has sparked the biggest wave of restructurings since 2017, when the effects of the last oil price downturn reverberated through the industry.

Alternative lenders like Apollo, Ares and HPS are increasingly providing larger loans to borrowers, and potentially taking away share from the leveraged loan and high-yield bond markets.

While rival banks reported increases in loans and deposits, thanks largely to their participation in the Paycheck Protection Program, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon saw their balance sheets shrink in the second quarter.

he report concluded that the industry should fare well compared with its peers, but that loans to mid-sized European companies remained vulnerable to fall-out from Covid-19.

Investors shouldn’t assume anything about the behavior of speculative-grade debt in this environment.

If creditors can now be pushed down the repayment pecking order without notice and have no recourse to fight back, they will be forced to reassess risk – and potentially demand higher interest rates – when granting loans and buying certain kinds of bonds.

Retailers and energy firms filed for bankruptcy protection in record numbers in the first half of 2020. Meanwhile, the volume of leveraged loans mandated but yet to launch is down 55% from the end of May.

Stakeholders in a $1.5B term loan (which include CLO managers) overwhelmingly approved the failed energy company's voluntary bankruptcy plan, providing them a 76% pro-rata share of new common stock in the company after it emerges from bankruptcy.

Money managers including Owl Rock Partners, Pretium and PGIM are racing to add workers with restructuring and bankruptcy experience as they take in record amounts of cash to buy cheap assets battered by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Restricted from taking on distressed debt or debtor-in-possession loans, CLO managers are being left out of opportunities in coronavirus-related debt restructurings. "It's frustrating," says one manager. "We are supposed to be the bully, not the one being pushed around.”

Leveraged loans and collateralized loan obligations do not represent an "existential" threat to the global economy or to the U.S. banking system, as some recent highly charged reports have suggested.

The leveraged loan market, long favored by private equity firms to fund LBOs, has lagged. The largest buyers of the debt - vehicles known as collateralized loan obligations - are not purchasing as much as they used to as they deal with the wave of downgrades that has hit many of the companies they already hold.

The firm will offload parts of its business including its business development company, Garrison Capital Inc., and other credit vehicles.

“Since April, the decline in corporate credit has resulted in a significant number of downgrades among the assets underlying some CLOs,” a Moody’s press release stated on Wednesday.

Shut out from many coronavirus relief programs, private equity companies have found a back door at HHS, where they have borrowed at least $1.5 billion.