06 Feb Voya Senior Loan Group – ‘Talking Points’ Weekly Update (incl. January in Review)
Voya Senior Loan ‘Talking Points’ is a weekly publication from the Voya Senior Loan Team Heads, which provides key insights and results in the Senior Loan marketplace.
Looking for Direction
With most capital markets still moving lower, the loan market looked inward last week to focus on fundamental credit as new issue and secondary markets both offered fairly light activity. The Index was down slightly on the week at -0.01%, with average bid prices at 90.13, eight bps lower than the week prior.
Against a backdrop of lackluster new issue flow, developments surrounding the in-market deal for Keurig Green Mountain dominated market talk. The large transaction is seen as a pricing exercise in the BB cohort, an area of the market heavily in demand from investors, particularly banks.
January in Review
While loans remained more stable than most other risk asset classes, January’s market turbulence did take its toll: the Index ended January down -0.65%. While the steepness of the 2008 record-breaking liquidity crisis, which created a total return rout of -28.32% for that six-month period, far outpaces the -4.45% aggregate decline between May 2015 and January 2016, this current market value pullback has led to a recession-like, four-year low average Index bid of 90.22.