Loan Market Participants

There are three primary-investor consistencies: banks, finance companies, and institutional investors. Banks, in this case, can be either a commercial bank, a savings and loan institution, or a securities firm that usually provides investment-grade loans. These are typically large revolving credits that back commercial paper or are used for general corporate purposes or, in some cases, acquisitions. For leveraged loans, banks typically provide unfunded revolving credits, LOCs, and--although they are becoming increasingly less common--amortizing term loans, under a syndicated loan agreement. Finance companies have consistently represented less than 10% of the leveraged loan market, and tend to play in smaller deals--$25 million to $200 million. These investors often seek asset-based loans that carry wide spreads and that often feature time-intensive collateral monitoring.


Institutional investors in the loan market are principally structured vehicles known as collateralized loan obligations (CLO) and loan participation mutual funds (known as “prime funds” because they were originally pitched to investors as a money-market-like fund that would approximate the prime rate). In addition, hedge funds, high-yield bond funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and other proprietary investors do participate opportunistically in loans. Typically, however, they invest principally in wide-margin loans (referred to by some players as “high-octane” loans), with spreads of LIBOR+500 or higher. During the first half of 2008, these players accounted for roughly a quarter of overall investment. CLOs are special-purpose vehicles set up to hold and manage pools of leveraged loans. The special-purpose vehicle is financed with several tranches of debt (typically a ‘AAA’ rated tranche, a ‘AA’ tranche, a ‘BBB’ tranche, and a mezzanine tranche) that have rights to the collateral and payment stream in descending order. In addition, there is an equity tranche, but the equity tranche is usually not rated. CLOs are created as arbitrage vehicles that generate equity returns through leverage, by issuing debt 10 to 11 times their equity contribution. There are also market-value CLOs that are less leveraged--typically 3 to 5 times--and allow managers more flexibility than more tightly structured arbitrage deals. CLOs are usually rated by two of the three major ratings agencies and impose a series of covenant tests on collateral managers, including minimum rating, industry diversification, and maximum default basket. By 2007, CLOs had become the dominant form of institutional investment in the leveraged loan market, taking a commanding 60% of primary activity by institutional investors. But when the structured finance market cratered in late 2007, CLO issuance tumbled and by mid-2008, CLO’s share had fallen to 40%.


Retail investors can access the loan market through prime funds. Prime funds were first introduced in the late 1980s. Most of the original prime funds were continuously offered funds with quarterly tender periods. Managers then rolled true closed-end, exchange-traded funds in the early 1990s. It was not until the early 2000s that fund complexes introduced open-ended funds that were redeemable each day. While quarterly redemption funds and closed-end funds remained the standard because the secondary loan market does not offer the rich liquidity that is supportive of open-end funds, the open-end funds had sufficiently raised their profile that by mid-2008 they accounted for 15% to 20% of the loan assets held by mutual funds.

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