Loans will be winners in bearish year for credit: BNP Paribas
Floating rate loans are best positioned for a year of widening credit spreads, but high yield bonds will outperform investment grade and EM credit is set for losses, says BNP Paribas in its 2022 outlook

Credit Rendezvous: And breathe...
The unanimous verdict is that credit spreads will be moving wider – they have to. But the difficulty credit fund managers face is predicting when the next sell-off comes and how sharp it will be. In the Q3 instalment of Creditflux’s Credit Rendezvous, the over-riding message from portfolio managers is that there’s little point in taking on too much risk. The report features the views of prominent credit figures including Paul Horvath (Orchard), Himani Trivedi (Nuveen), Ronnie Jaber (Onex), Graham Rainbow (Alcentra) and Michelle Russell-Dowe (Schroders). The report looks at 14 segments of the market including CLOs, direct lending, leveraged loans, distressed debt and credit derivatives.  

Points up front: “Thanks for the loan.” “What loan?”
Direct lending sounds simple enough; borrowers have direct engagement with a small set of lenders and negotiate a private agreement for the long-haul. Sounds easy enough, except when the lender claims to have no idea about the deal you’ve just announced.