Fund performance

European CLO funds lead the way

February was a positive month for many funds, as only one quarter failed to reach the black. This builds off a stellar start to the year: 96% of funds reached a positive return in January.

Creditflux index returns February (%)

Eight of the top-10 funds in February invested primarily in CLOs, highlighting a strong month for the asset class. This helped pull Crystal Funds, Lupus Alpha and Prytania up into double figures for their start to 2023.

European-based CLO funds seemed to have the most to say in February, as Alegra, Accunia, Capital Four and Lupus Alpha all reached the top 10.

Axiom started the year strongly, reaching 12.49% after its corporate long-short fund returned 3.37% in February. Wasserstein also pushed to 6.90% in February, which has helped the US high yield fund hit 12.20% annualised return since inception in May 2013.

Leading fund

BK Opportunities Fund V

Crystal Fund’s BK Opportunities Fund V reached the top of the rankings as it hit 7.11% in February. The CLO fund has started to recover from a tough 2022 where it fell -17.08%. Two months into 2023 and the fund has reached 13% through its mezzanine and lower mezzanine Euro CLO single-B exposure.

Olivier Gozlan, portfolio manager at Crystal, said: “Redeployed cash in late September, mid-December and mid-February helped performance as spreads were wider over these periods. This helped the fund as the whole portfolio went up.”

“From a fundamental perspective, we remain constructive and believe that CLO tranches offer attractive profiles, even after the February upside.”

The Crystal fund was launched in 2018.

Top credit funds in February (%)

BK Opportunities fund V vs CLOs cumulative fund (%)

*Data since fund inception (Jul-2018)

**Estimates

For hedge fund listing notes see Credit hedge funds

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