Fixed Income

This deal, backed by a £472m pool of owner-occupied mortgages partially securitised in a previous transaction, drew over £1.2bn of orders and was printed 10-30bp tighter than initial price guidance depending on the tranche, reaching pre-COVID tights.

Ultimately, the fact that the Klockner deal is not marketed as a green loan but still includes ESG-related covenants is proof that ESG needs to be integrated into an investor’s credit work as a matter of course, something we have been arguing for years.

We think it is indeed time to begin the search for recovery stories and deleveraging credits in sectors where the execution strategy is likely to succeed.

I think it’s likely we’ll see new cycle tights for the European CLO sector this year, so in addition to healthy income we believe there is plenty of room for capital appreciation as prices are being pushed higher in the secondary market.

We think this current pause in the global rally is healthy and gives investors a rare moment to reassess, but from a fixed income credit point of view we would not expect too much of a dip.

European ABS primary markets have started 2021 at the solid pace that most market participants expected. The market saw a patchy Q4 in which activity petered out early, not helped by the dominant UK market suffering some hesitation whilst tightrope Brexit deal talks went to the wire, but also as a result of a rather more simple fatigue that appeared to have set in.

In our view the rationale for the premium is certainly weakening and, of course, we can no longer call it a ‘Brexit’ premium.

Partner and portfolio manager Chris Bowie looks back at investment grade credit market performance in 2020 and provides his outlook for 2021

TwentyFour AM partner and portfolio manager Douglas Charleston discusses Q4 performance for ABS markets and provides his outlook for 2021.

George Curtis discusses credit markets in Q4 2020 and provides his outlook for the year ahead

For high yield issuers 2021 has started in a similar vein to 2020, with the technical backdrop providing an attractive environment for capital raising.

Our analysis indicates European ABS investors can carry forward little concern about nasty default surprises, and this is likely to be important when considering total returns for 2021.