Letter from Tokyo (Second of a Series)
Last week we came to Tokyo for meetings with our investors and friends in the region, as well as participating in S&P’s stellar Structured Finance Seminar 2025. Along with almost 200 attendees we heard senior ratings analysts and leading CLO market participants discuss trends and outlooks for global leveraged finance, CLOs and other securitized strategies.
For our panel, “Private Credit, Middle Market CLOs and Fund Finance,” we discussed why the illiquid asset class has spawned so much growth in so many areas of structured finance. In part it’s the growing sophistication of financial engineering around CLOs and related vehicles. Dropdown structures, for example, are increasingly employed to leverage a variety of funds including BDCs, funds, and SMAs…
▶︎ Read May 26th, 2025 Newsletter: here
Latest news
US leveraged loans returns turn negative in October
The Bloomberg US Leveraged Loan Index (Ticker: LOAN) has returned -0.26% this month through October 21, reducing its year-to-date return…
M&A activity begins to tick upward
In the third quarter of 2026, acquisition-linked loan volume across North America and Europe reached about $47 billion, up from $30.6 billion in Q2 and $29.5 billion a year ago.
