On Wednesday 14th September , TwentyFour Asset Management held its annual investor conference online for the first time.

Yesterday the ECB released their guidance to banks regarding shareholder distributions. They have reiterated that banks should exercise extreme moderation on variable remuneration (bonus payments) and have set limits for dividend payments to equity holders and prudence on any share buy-back schemes.

As we are nearing the end of 2020 and assessing pockets of potential value going into 2021, we have to question the strong rally we have just experienced and assess the attractiveness of the hybrid spread multiple and whether or not we can expect further compression.

ESG investing was tipped to be the biggest theme of 2020 for financial markets, but was swiftly superseded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has dominated investors’ thoughts since Q1. We thought it was important to revisit this topic and explore if and how the pandemic has changed the world of ESG.

We have now retraced some 90% of the March widening in European high yield (on a spread basis and relative to the January tights), a recovery trend we expect to continue as economies open up and demand bounces back. 

To mark the fifth anniversary of his firm’s Strategic Income global bond strategy, TwentyFour Asset Management chief executive, Mark Holman, looks at how the COVID-19 crisis has transformed the bond markets in 2020, and where he believes investors should be looking for value heading into 2021.

Speed of market movement will be a feature of this recovery as the market realises many of the same trends are firmly in place, and with the incredible technical backdrop this means lower yields as the cycle progresses.

Partner and Portfolio Manager Aza Teeuwen and Geoffrey Horton, CLO and Loan Strategist at Barclays discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the leveraged loan and CLO markets and how they expect this to develop in the rest of 2020.

Residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) are an under-utilised asset class for many investors, despite boasting some of the lowest default rates across the global fixed income market and offering higher yields and greater investor protections than vanilla corporate bonds of the same rating.

Chris Bowie and Gordon Shannon hosted a breakout session on the IG stage where they provided an update on portfolio performance and their outlook for investment grade credit markets.