The credit market appears healthy based on tight average spreads, but this is misleading. A strong top 90% of the market pulls the average down, while the bottom 10% faces severe distress, with loans "dropping like a stone." The weight of prolonged high borrowing costs is creating a clear divide between healthy and struggling companies.
A slowing economy leads rating agencies to downgrade loans. Since Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) have strict limits on lower-rated debt, they become forced sellers. This flood of supply depresses prices further, creating a negative feedback loop that harms even fundamentally sound but downgraded assets.
Aegon's Global Head of Leverage Finance, Jim Schaefer, shares a critical heuristic: once a leveraged loan's price falls below the 80-cent mark, it has a high probability of entering a formal restructuring. This price level acts as a key warning indicator for investors, signaling imminent and severe distress.
Veteran investor Jim Schaefer notes a recurring pattern before recessions: a massive, euphoric movement of capital into a specific area (e.g., telecom in 2001, mortgages in 2008). This over-investment inevitably creates systemic problems. Investors should be wary of any asset class currently experiencing such a large-scale influx.
Liability Management Exercises (LMEs) that extended debt maturities a few years ago are proving to be temporary fixes, not cures. Many of these same companies are returning for "LME 2.0" because fundamental business issues—like weak consumer demand or high input costs—were never resolved, making the initial "kick the can" strategy ineffective.
Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) have a structural covenant limiting their holdings of CCC-rated (or below) loans to typically 7.5% of the portfolio. As more loans are downgraded past this threshold, managers are forced to sell, even if they believe in the credit's long-term value. This creates artificial selling pressure and price distortions.
Despite higher spreads in the loan market, high-yield bonds are currently seen as a more stable investment. Leveraged loans face risks from LME activity, higher defaults, and investor outflows as the Fed cuts rates (reducing their floating-rate appeal). Fixed-rate high-yield bonds are more insulated from these specific pressures.