London-based Crystal Fund finished 2019 and started 2020 with the top-performing fund in the Creditflux listings. BK Opportunities Fund V returned 4.99% in January. Olivier Gozlan, portfolio manager, says: “By the end of January there was yet to be an impact on credit or valuations from the coronavirus, this seems to be changing, and CLO tranches were actively traded. The BK Opportunities Funds saw a rally in positions purchased in early Q4 that helped boost performances.” “On the primary loan side, most activity has favoured repricings due to spread tightening. This may be perceived as negatively impacting CLO equity returns and is why I feel this valuation rally has been more beneficial for CLO mezz tranches, which tend to be neutral in the face of loan spread tightening.”

Following closely was Finanz Konzept’s Triple Opportunity Fixed Income Fund and Accunia’s European CLO Opportunity Fund returning 4.78% and 4.71% respectively. Corporate long-short, a category that came out on top in 2019, made another appearance as French manager Axiom’s Credit Opportunity fund returned 3.75%. It wasn’t just CLO funds performing strongly as 84% of funds listed made positive returns. This marks a 9% drop from December, although those returns were boosted by NAV dips in October and November. Structured finance also performed well, as Mill Hill Credit Opportunities returned 4.61% and Serone Key Opportunities took 3.70% to place them in the top 10.