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Report
Liquidity Transformation Risks in U.S. Bank Loan and High-Yield Mutual Funds
In this note, we examine the liquidity profiles of a sample of bank loan and high-yield open-end mutual funds. Among other things, we find that the ten largest bank loan mutual funds have increased their holdings of the hardest-to-value, generally most illiquid assets over the past decade.
Report
Macroprudential policy and the revolving door of risk: lessons from leveraged lending guidance
We investigate the U.S. experience with macroprudential policies by studying the interagency guidance on leveraged lending. We find that the guidance primarily impacted large, closely supervised banks, but only after supervisors issued important clarifications. It also triggered a migration of leveraged lending to nonbanks. While we do not find that nonbanks had more lax lending policies than banks, we unveil important evidence that nonbanks increased bank borrowing following the issuance of guidance, possibly to finance their growing leveraged lending. The guidance was effective at reducing ...
Working Paper
What Do Lead Banks Learn from Leveraged Loan Investors?
In leveraged loan deals, lead banks use bookbuilding to extract price-relevant information from syndicate participants. This paper examines the content of such information. We find that pricing adjustments during bookbuilding are highly informative, not only about investors’ required risk premium but also about borrower quality. A one-percentage-point increase in loan spread predicts a 0.8% higher excess return, a proxy for risk premium, over the first 3 months of secondary market trading. More importantly, it also predicts a 3% higher probability of subsequent default, implying that ...
Discussion Paper
Investigating the Trading Activity of CLO Portfolio Managers
Unlike mortgage-backed and home equity-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), whose collateral is predominantly corporate loans, are slowly but steadily recovering. This revival, illustrated in the chart below, spotlights again a sector of nonagency structured finance that has been scrutinized for its investment practices. This post investigates the trading activities of CLO collateral managers. Understanding their investment strategies is crucial to assessing their effectiveness as financial intermediaries, including their role in financing leveraged buyouts, corporate ...
Evolving leveraged loan covenants may pose novel transmission risk
An evolving change affecting the expanding, highly leveraged corporate loan sector may impact how the economy responds to adverse shocks.