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Global credit funds & CLO's
January 2024 | Issue 261
Published in London & New York.
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February 2024 | Issue 261
Analysis
CLOs
CLO rankings:
2023 turns out OK
Tom Davidson
Managing editor
After a positive start to 2023, a rash of US bank failures sent spreads soaring. But markets rallied in late summer, and a strong November helped overall issuance reach decent numbers
Last year may not have seen records in the primary CLO market, but it was a very solid performer with a strong finish. The global market saw some USD 170bn of issuance, spread across 401 CLOs. November was a bumper month as tightening spreads and the looming year-end drove managers large and small to the market. The final result was some USD 22.81bn of total issuance, including a considerable amount for both European CLOs and the fast-growing private credit CLO market.
Global CLO issuance 2023 ($bn)
All data as of 31-Dec-2023. Source: Creditflux
A quiet year for the biggest managers
So how much did the year impact our league tables? Surprisingly little at the top of our manager rankings, because the largest CLO managers all had a relatively quiet year. None of the top five US managers by AUM appear in our top five US managers by 2023 issuance volume.
In our global rankings, there was only one change in the top six, as Blackstone regained its crown as the largest CLO manager in the world, pushing Carlyle back into second place. Blackstone now manages more than USD 52bn of CLOs by principal liabilities.
Some distance below Carlyle come CSAM, PGIM, Sound Point and Apollo (with its affiliate, Redding Ridge).
In the hotly contested global CLO arranger rankings, a late surge from JP Morgan in December made the results extremely tight. By our methodology, it couldn’t quite close the gap, and Bank of America triumphed in first place globally, if only by a few hundred million dollars. Last year, the result was also a narrow victory for Bank of America — that time over Citi — with JP Morgan closely following in third place. This year it was Citi in third place globally, but with a wider gap.
That pattern was replicated in the US BSL CLO markets, with the results again extremely close between the two banks. On the middle market side it was Natixis that triumphed, with almost a billion dollars of clear water between it and second-placed Wells Fargo. In Europe, we had Jefferies in first place, closely followed by BNP Paribas, Barclays and JP Morgan, in that order. Consecutive wins for Jefferies in Europe follow the dramatic rise of the bank since 2020, when a team of CLO veterans led by Luis Leon Carsi moved to the bank from Citi.
Milbank is top manager counsel
For legal advisory firms we divide the market between manager counsel mandates and arranger counsel mandates. The former saw another close battle, with Milbank just pipping rival Dechert to the top spot globally.
For the arranger counsel rankings there was no contest. Paul Hastings dominated with an impressive 41% market share. US Bank was the largest CLO trustee globally, also with a 41% share of the market.
Turning to our US BSL rankings for managers, few will be surprised to see prolific issuer Palmer Square at the top, pricing USD 3.6bn of CLOs, mainly new issues. It was followed by Nuveen, Apollo, Elmwood and Bain. All have been growing quickly.
Palmer Square also triumphed in Europe, taking first place for the year with almost EUR 2bn of exclusively new issuance. This time, the runners up included CVC, Blackstone, Invesco and Onex.
Golub remains by far the largest middle market CLO manager in the world, with over USD 25bn of CLO AUM. It also dominated issuance in 2023, with a market share of just over 15% for the year. Even Blue Owl couldn’t match that pace, although its USD 3bn of issuance in 2023 is impressive for a manager that only priced its first deal in 2019.
US MM CLOs
(full year 2023 — $bn)
US MM CLOs
(full year 2023 — $bn)
European CLOs
(full year 2023 — €bn)
All data used for these rankings is as of 31 December 2023. Our issuance totals exclude double-counting due to jointly-arranged deals. In jointly-arranged deals, credit is split between the lead and co-arranger. For queries and corrections please contact data@creditflux.com.
$52bn
Blackstone is the largest CLO manager in the world by principal liabilities
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