Credit Market Summary -...

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Credit Market Summary 07 June 2013

Transcript of Credit Market Summary -...

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CreditMarketSummary07 June 2013

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22ECM Credit Market Summary

Portfolio Commentary

Bond market tremors

Fixed income total returns, particularly in the US, came under pressure in May as speculation grew about the timing of a withdrawal of US quantitative easing.

The focal point for the speculation was Bernanke’s testimony to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. The formal testimony initially reassured the US Treasury market that “a premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily, but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery and causing inflation to fall further”. The Treasury market breathed a sigh of relief and prices rallied – for a couple of hours at least.

Fig. 1 10-year US Treasury Yields 22nd May 2013

Doubts over the Fed’s policy rose during the subsequent Q&A session with Bernanke sending yields sharply higher, hinting that a tapering of asset purchases could come sooner than expected; “if we see continued improvement and we have confidence that that’s going to be sustained then we could in the next few meetings ... take a step down in our pace of purchases. If we do that it would not mean that we are automatically aiming towards a complete wind down. Rather we would be looking beyond that to see how the economy evolves and we could either raise or lower our pace of purchases going forward.”

Ross A. PamphilonCo-Chief Investment Officer & Portfolio Manager

Source: Bloomberg

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3ECM Credit Market Summary

The Fed has successfully managed to move the debate on from not “if” but to “when” it will taper asset purchases. As a consequence, we expect investors to monitor economic data releases and monetary policy rhetoric more closely. In scrutinizing every piece of information for clues there is a risk that the market overacts to surprises either to the downside or upside and volatility levels will probably increase during this phase of the economic cycle, until there is greater policy certainty.

10-year US Treasury yields actually closed 50bps higher on the month causing them to underperform German Bunds and UK Gilts. There are some early signs of a mini-rotation out of “fixed rate” exposure with US high yield mutual funds reporting a record outflow of $4.7bn for the week ending Wednesday 5th June. We also note that US loans, a floating rate asset class, picked up $1bn of inflows for the same period indicating to us that retail investors appear to be more concerned about interest rate risk as opposed to credit exposure at this point in the cycle.

Although we believe that it is premature to expect a significant rotation out of fixed interest assets at this time, there remains a risk that a larger-than-expected move to a higher interest rate environment could trigger a more lasting rotation from fixed interest to equity investment strategies. It is for this reason that we continue to believe it is appropriate for ECM to fully hedge interest rate risk

as the starting point for its multi asset class credit (MACC) strategies.

As a result, fund performance in our MACC strategies stands to benefit from profits on interest rate hedges in a rising rate environment. This proved to be the case in May when our interest rate duration hedged MACC strategies generated positive returns on the month, contrasting directly with total return loses suffered on fixed rate corporate indices.

ECM has previously published a number of studies on the correlation between credit spreads and interest rates and our analysis indicates that while there is no clear trend over the last 50 years, the correlation has been more negative over the last twenty years or so. What is more important is to identify drivers behind inflection points when looking at significant changes in interest rates and their relationship with credit spreads. For example, the negative consequences of high inflation and recession during the oil crises of the 1970s/80s led to higher interest rates with credit spread widening. Looking forward, one of the objectives of ECM’s Investment Strategy Group is to identify the relevant drivers of such inflection points and incorporate them into our investment strategy accordingly.

Fig 2: 36 month rolling correlation between 10-year US Treasury Yield and BBB Credit Spreads

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Source: Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, ECM

recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator

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While the correlation story of credit spreads with interest rates is fairly complicated with many underlying drivers, we note that spreads do tend to be negatively correlated with GDP growth levels, typically rising as a consequence of increased incidents of defaults during times of economic difficulty (recession).

The strong demand for credit has provided a supportive environment for speculative-grade companies, allowing them to refinance at attractive levels and lengthen the maturity profile of their obligations. This has helped to keep default rates low despite the more challenging economic environment. Our research team regularly models the potential impact of a higher interest rate environment on debt servicing costs to identify vulnerable issuers and as a result we are generally negatively disposed towards Euro-centric cyclical operators in the high yield space.

Reviewing equity market performance for May, the developed markets represented the best performing asset class with the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and DAX returning 3%, 2% and 5.5% respectively while the Shanghai Composite index was up 5.6%, contrasting with generally poor

performance of other emerging markets.

The sell-off in US treasuries was supportive for the US dollar but contributed to weaker performance of EM currencies with the South African Rand down 9% and Mexican Peso, Turkish Lira, Brazilian Real and Russian Ruble all nursing significant losses. The rapid increase in US Treasury yields, combined with the strength of the

US dollar, precipitated a sell-off in emerging market debt with the year to date total returns of JPM EMBI index now firmly in negative territory. While flows into EM fixed income funds have been strong this year at over $35bn the market is starting to experience net outflows and looks extremely vulnerable to us in the event of higher US Treasury yields.

Turning to the credit markets, the weakness in core rates was significant enough to drive total returns on major corporate credit indices negative with the US significantly underperforming Euro markets. The US BoA Merrill Lynch C0A0 Corporate Index reported negative total returns of -2.28% in May while the Euro equivalent Index did better reporting a loss of -0.24%. Total returns for the sterling market were also weak with the BoA Merrill Lynch UR00 Corporate Index down 1.64% on the month. Total returns for the U.S. index now stand in negative territory on a calendar year to date basis at -0.57% versus the Euro corporate index at +1.76% and sterling index at +3.125%.

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Fig 3: 5-year rolling correlation between real GDP and US BBB Credit Spreads

Source: Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, ECM

recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator recession indicator

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5ECM Credit Market Summary

However, on an interest rate hedged basis excess returns to governments for all three indices were notably positive on the month at 19bps for USD, 55bps for Euro and 61bps for the Sterling Corporate Index.

In high yield, USD and Euro indices reported negative total returns on the month while sterling high yield generated positive returns. However, the impact of higher interest rates was less significant than for investment grade given the generally lower sensitivity of the high yield asset class to rates combined with higher carry better able to offset losses (total returns on the month were -53bps and -6bps for US and Euro high yield respectively while Sterling returned +9bps).

In the primary markets, while Euro denominated new issuance slowed in the second half of the month, May proved to be another strong month for Euro non-financial issuance with €14.45bn of issuance bringing the year-to-date total to €83bn which is well ahead of primary issuance at this stage last year.

In senior financials the story of low issuance volumes remains with only €8.6bn of new issues in May bringing the year-to-date total to €59.75bn. We expect that the senior financials market will continue to benefit from positive technicals, given the low levels of issuance versus maturities.

In high yield, May proved to be another good month for issuance with €6.2bn of deals coming to the market bringing the year to date total to €30.5bn. The high yield market continues to grow driven by borrowers that have looked to diversify their funding mix away from pure loans and the market size now stands at about €224bn or about twice the size of the European leveraged loan index. Given the large proportion of senior secured high yield issuance we believe that companies will increasingly switch their funding mix between these two markets to tap into investor demand opportunistically with issuance moving in both directions.

Looking forward, although we remain fairly cautious of interest rate duration over the longer term, we believe we are well positioned to manage through the interest rate cycle, given our stance of hedging rate risk and building decent allocations to non-rate sensitive investments such as floating rate bonds. We also believe that 2013 will provide good entry points for credit spreads particularly given the strong underlying fundamentals in the corporate sector and we retain sufficient flexibility to exploit opportunities as they arise. Growth prospects in the US and China will continue to drive sentiment, while we caution that the provision of excessive liquidity by central banks has not only distorted market prices but can also lead to steep market corrections as we saw with the Nikkei in May.

Please turn over for ECM Global Markets Summary May month end

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6ECM Credit Market Summary

Source: ECM

Fig 4: ECM Global Markets summary May month end

CURRENT 1 WEEKCHANGE

ON WEEK 1 MONTH

CHANGE ON

MONTH 3 MONTH

CHANGE ON 3

MONTHSSTART OF

YEAR

CHANGE OVER YEAR

RATES MARKETS (%)US 10YRS 2.13 2.01 0.12 1.63 0.50 1.84 0.29 1.76 0.37GILTS 10YRS 2.00 1.90 0.11 1.65 0.35 1.87 0.13 1.83 0.17BUNDS 10YRS 1.51 1.43 0.07 1.21 0.30 1.41 0.10 1.32 0.19OATS 10YRS 2.07 1.94 0.13 1.71 0.36 2.11 -0.04 2.00 0.08BTPS 10YRS 4.16 4.14 0.02 3.91 0.25 4.79 -0.63 4.50 -0.34BONOS 10YRS 4.44 4.42 0.02 4.14 0.30 5.10 -0.66 5.27 -0.82JGBS 10YRS 0.86 0.83 0.02 0.59 0.27 0.66 0.20 0.79 0.07US SWAP SPREAD 10YRS (BPS) 17.50 15.06 2.44 19.06 -1.56 9.25 8.25 6.50 11.00EURO SWAP SPREAD 10 YRS (BPS) 23.95 23.52 0.42 26.95 -3.01 29.97 -6.03 25.12 -1.17STERLING SWAP SPREADS 10YRS (BPS) 10.51 9.96 0.55 14.02 -3.51 9.41 1.10 4.53 5.98US TREASURY VOLATILITY 79.99 65.12 14.87 49.04 30.95 55.00 24.99 59.40 20.59CDS MARKETS (BPS)ITRAXX MAIN 103 98 5 100 3 118 -15 117 -14ITRAXX HIVOL 152 144 8 151 0 173 -22 174 -23ITRAXX SENIOR FINANCIALS 147 142 4 147 0 164 -17 142 5ITRAX SUB FINANCIALS 212 202 10 237 -25 280 -68 235 -24ITRAXX CROSSOVER 422 401 22 404 18 454 -32 482 -60CDX IG 79 76 3 78 1 86 -7 94 -15CDX HY 391 370 21 374 17 432 -41 484 -94CREDIT MARKETS OAS TO GOVT (BPS)EURO CORPORATES 116 114 2 125 -9 140 -24 142 -26EURO BBB NONFINANCIALS 131 127 4 142 -11 165 -34 162 -31EURO IG FINANCIALS 142 138 4 149 -7 169 -27 173 -31EURO SUB FINANCIALS 292 289 3 312 -20 369 -77 373 -81EURO HIGH YIELD 438 420 18 422 16 478 -40 467 -29EURO SENIOR ABS 64 65 0 67 -3 76 -11 79 -14EURO MEZZ ABS 307 308 -2 321 -15 312 -6 365 -58EURO LOANS 556 554 2 563 -8 631 -75 698 -142STERLING NONGILTS 141 138 3 148 -7 168 -27 175 -34STERLING IG FINANCIALS 231 225 6 239 -8 273 -42 286 -55STERLING HIGH YIELD 546 518 28 544 2 589 -43 622 -76US CORPORATES 147 142 5 147 0 149 -2 150 -3US BBB NONFINANCIALS 182 176 6 182 0 184 -2 182 0US IG FINANCIALS 155 148 7 156 -1 161 -6 170 -15US HIGH YIELD 462 445 17 450 12 498 -36 516 -54EQUITY MARKETS (LEVELS & %)EURO STOXX 50 2770 2764 0.2% 2712 2.1% 2617 5.8% 2636 5.1%DAX 8349 8305 0.5% 7914 5.5% 7708 8.3% 7612 9.7%CAC 40 3949 3957 -0.2% 3857 2.4% 3700 6.7% 3641 8.4%FTSE MIB 17214 16897 1.9% 16768 2.7% 15675 9.8% 16273 5.8%IBEX 35 8321 8265 0.7% 8419 -1.2% 8187 1.6% 8168 1.9%FTSE 100 6583 6654 -1.1% 6451 2.0% 6379 3.2% 5898 11.6%S&P 500 1631 1650 -1.1% 1583 3.0% 1518 7.4% 1426 14.3%NIKKEI 225 13775 14612 -5.7% 13799 -0.2% 11606 18.7% 10395 32.5%MSCI EMEA 579 573 1.1% 557 4.1% 544 6.5% 506 14.5%VIX 16 14 16.5% 14 12.5% 15 6.1% 18 -9.5%COMMODITY MARKETS (LEVELS & %)WTI OIL 92 94 -2.3% 91 0.8% 92 0.1% 94 -1.8%BRENT OIL 100 103 -2.2% 100 0.9% 108 -6.8% 107 -6.5%NYMEX GAS 275 283 -2.6% 271 1.8% 296 -7.0% 282 -2.4%GOLD 1388 1387 0.1% 1458 -4.8% 1576 -11.9% 1674 -17.1%SILVER 22 22 -0.6% 23 -4.6% 29 -22.1% 30 -26.5%ALUMINIUM 1886 1817 3.8% 1810 4.2% 1983 -4.9% 2098 -10.1%COPPER 7290 7282 0.1% 6783 7.5% 7708 -5.4% 7949 -8.3%WHEAT 706 698 1.1% 721 -2.1% 722 -2.3% 794 -11.1%COTTON 79 81 -2.6% 84 -5.4% 86 -7.8% 77 3.2%CURRENCY MARKETS (LEVELS & %)EUR/USD 1.30 1.29 0.5% 1.32 -1.5% 1.30 -0.2% 1.32 -1.6%EUR/GBP 0.86 0.86 0.0% 0.85 1.0% 0.87 -1.3% 0.81 5.4%EUR/CHF 1.24 1.24 -0.1% 1.22 1.5% 1.23 1.1% 1.21 2.8%EUR/SEK 8.60 8.59 0.1% 8.53 0.9% 8.38 2.6% 8.60 0.0%USD/JPY 100.45 101.31 -0.8% 97.28 3.3% 93.59 7.3% 86.75 15.8%GBP/USD 1.52 1.51 0.5% 1.56 -2.4% 1.50 1.1% 1.63 -6.5%AUD/USD 0.96 0.97 -0.8% 1.03 -6.9% 1.02 -6.2% 1.04 -8.0%CAD/USD 0.96 0.97 -0.6% 0.99 -2.8% 0.97 -1.0% 1.01 -4.3%

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7ECM Credit Market Summary

Investment Grade Corporates

Interest Rates

Core rates are slightly lower (as I write pre non-farm payrolls) than Friday’s closes: US 10 year yields are down 7bps (having traded in a 20bps range) with bunds and gilts only down 2 bps (with smaller weekly ranges). Rates volatility picked up as the ECB conference took place. The fact that the 2.08% support for 10 year treasury yields has failed for now makes us more neutral in our short term yield outlook but longer term we still prefer to trade from the short side with respect to US rates.

The Bank of England and the ECB left rates unchanged as expected. ECB staff projections took account of Q1 weakness with a down revision to 2013 growth to -0.6% (from -0.5%) but revised up 2014 growth by 0.1% to 1.1%. The fact that there has been no rate cut (and now no imminent likelihood of one happening unless there is a significant further deterioration in the economy) despite the weak Eurozone economy and the lowered forecasts for inflation caused euro interest rates to increase and eur/usd to strengthen. It was possibly the eur/usd strengthening from 1.31 taking out stops all the way to 1.33 which set off the usd/jpy weakness later in the afternoon (it moved

from 99.00 and went as low as 96.00) and that in turn hit the Nikkei and other stock markets which then helped treasuries and bunds recover in price.

Chinese, Eurozone and UK manufacturing PMIs were all stronger than expected (Eurozone services PMIs as expected) unlike the US manufacturing ISM which was below 50 for the first time since November 2011 and the weakest since June 2009. Weak US factory orders also helped treasuries outperform bunds and gilts despite the Fed’s Beige book showing continued moderate expansion (with strong growth in Dallas). The US ADP employment was also below expectations making some economists lower predictions for today’s important non-farm payroll and unemployment data (which is key for the market in assessing the likelihood and timing of any Fed QE tapering).

In the UK services and construction PMIs and retail sales were also stronger than expected and Halifax home prices recorded their strongest year on year rise in nearly 3 years at 2.6% yoy.

Despite the general feeling of anguish in the market, spreads on corporate bonds have actually held-in fairly well, with the EN40 Corporate BBB index widening only 7bps on the week to 138 (now 12bps off the YTD tights) which places spreads back at early-May levels. Secondary market liquidity is relatively thin, but is not significantly different from the conditions we have been operating within for much of this year. At the same time the new issue market continues to function reasonably well with approximately €4.2bn of bonds issued this week by six different issuers, including a first time issuer (Vier Gas Transport) and a peripheral issuer (Abertis). Yes the market is feeling a little nervous as it tries to interpret monetary authority musings, but it is not panicked.

An examination of the corporate news flow reveals both positive and negative trends, and thus provides some insight surrounding broader market indecision. At one end we have bell weather companies like Tesco reporting disappointing sales for the quarter ended 25 May, including

UK like-for-like sales down 1% as well as declines across China, Europe and many other international operations. Some utility earnings may also come under pressure from weak industrial demand and thus lower gas prices. Companies like Ahold also are using recent disposal proceeds to increase share buybacks (up from €500m to €2bn), though Ahold’s projected leverage ratios remain very modest. However, the news flow is not universally negative for credit. Telefonica continues to assess asset disposal options as it seeks to strengthen its balance sheet, while others like Reed continue to execute against asset disposal plans. Indeed, even where European companies are undertaking acquisitions, much of this appears to be bolt-on in nature and thus well within the capacity of organic FCF. In aggregate, corporate leverage ratios and thus overall credit quality is relatively stable. Consequently, to the extent corporate credit is being indiscriminately buffeted by interest rate concerns, this merely presents alpha generating opportunities for duration-hedged strategies such as those employed by ECM.

Duncan Warwick-ChampionHead of Corporate Research

Alastair ThomasHead of Rates & Treasury Management

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8ECM Credit Market Summary

High Yield

Loans

May saw some volatility return to the high yield market with gains from the first three weeks all given back in the last. The Barclays European high yield index, ex financials, returned 0%, leaving YTD returns at +3.3%. The top performing sectors in March were metals & mining, building materials and electricity producers, recording total returns of +0.8%, +0.5% and +0.5% respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, the underperforming sectors were gaming, retailers and consumer products returning -4.2%, -1.8% and -0.8% respectively. Performance was quality driven with the higher quality BB credits (+0.2%) outperforming B credits (-0.2%) and lower quality CCC names (-0.4%). New issuance was €12.2bn across currencies and was a record for the European market, beating the previous best, which was €9.7bn in February 2012. The YTD total rises to €43.7bn, which is up 67% versus the same period in 2012.

As this week progressed, the market deteriorated leaving spreads on cash bonds in the Merrill Lynch HEAD index

31bps wider and the iTraxx Xover CDS index 37bps wider. Fears of QE tapering in the US and the record breaking US fund outflows were compounded by the lack of action from the ECB. The reversal of the positive technical backdrop has left some of the higher beta credits more vulnerable to the sell-off. South African retailer, Edcon, saw its bonds fall 7 points as it reported earnings which showed that profitability fell 13% in the 12 month period to March but highlighted that current trading had stabilised. Sentiment around the name was also not helped by the wider sell-off in emerging markets and the 13% decline in the Rand versus the US dollar over the past month. UK fashion retailer, New Look, has seen its bonds struggle since issuance last month. Despite reporting solid profitability, which was up 29%, its bonds slid another 3 points and are now down 7 points from issue.

However, steel producer, Schmolz & Bickenbach has seen its bonds outperform over the past month, rising 3 points

Although not as severe as in other markets, some volatility did come to the loan market this week. As of yesterday, the ELLI index was down 6bps for the month to date with a rise in the first few days of the month offset as the week progressed. Despite this though, the outlook for the loan market is positive as the current volatility is driven by investor fears about rising rates. Data from this week in the US (where loan fund flow information is more freely available) has shown inflows to loan funds at the same time as outflows from high yield funds, suggesting that investors are already looking for the floating rate hedge.

The names that have performed the worst in recent days have been those with links to the bond market, either because they have a capital structure which already includes bonds or because it was thought that they might be near term bond issuers to refinance their loans. For example, TDF has now dropped 1.5 points from its high of 94.5/95.5. The majority of the loan market, however, has

been resilient as investors still have cash to spend and CLO managers continue to warehouse for new generation transactions.

In the primary market, this week saw the close and allocation of the dividend recap of Oxea. Despite the aggressiveness of the new structure and the wider environment, the loans rose approximately one point on the break. There was also the launch of a new transaction for French call centre operator Webhelp whilst the syndication processes for Merlin and DE Master Blenders continued. Both Kion and Springer have this week expressed a desire to launch IPOs but it remains to be seen whether this will be possible if volatility in equity markets is here for the medium term.

Sam McGairlPortfolio Manager

Henry Craik-WhiteSenior Investment Analyst

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9ECM Credit Market Summary

Key HY Weekly Statistics – 07th June 2013Synthetic Indices Current Change on week Change MTD

(bps) (bps) % change (bps) % changeEurope - Xover S16 458 37 8.7% 37 8.7%US - CDX HY 410 20 5.0% 20 5.0%

Cash Indices OAS Yield Total Return

Current OAS Change on week Yield Change on weekTotal

return YTDChange on

week(bps) (bps) (%) (% pts) (%) (% pts)

Europe - HEAD 469 31 5.40 0.39 2.55 -1.01US - H0A0 508 46 6.16 0.46 2.90 -1.35

HY Fund flows Weekly flows 4 week average

(m) (m) YTD flows (bn) YTD flows ($bn)2012 flows

(bn)2012 flows

($bn)Europe (€) -309.0 43.5 3.4 4.5 7.88 10.45US ($) -4630.0 -1360.5 -3.1 -3.1 22.64 22.64

Source: ML, JPMorgan, Bloomberg, EPFR

Macro issues continue to be the main spread driver within the financials space. Cash bond selling which started last week in financials has clearly picked up this week with long duration bonds and credits with emerging market exposure bearing the brunt of the sell-off. Coco bonds were not surprisingly in investors’ cross-hairs especially as there have been a decent number of new issues (from the likes of BBVA, Barclays, UBS and BKIR) from this segment in recent months. For example, the BBVA 9% Coco is trading at 97 some 6 points below its recent highs of two weeks ago. The BofA ML Euro financial and subordinated financial indices (EB00 and EBSU) have posted negative excess swap returns of 33bps and 85bps respectively over the

past 2 weeks. However, cumulative year-to-date excess swap returns for the EB00 and EBSU are still +159bps and +361bps respectively. CDS indices have bounced off their recent lows but the widening has been far less pronounced than in the cash market with subordinated fins index trading at 225 compared with 175 in mid-May (equivalent to only 2 points in cash terms) and senior fins index at 156 versus 125 (approximately 1.4 points). As noted in our weekly comment two weeks ago, there are strong technical drivers at work in the bank CDS market with a dearth of protection buyers given proposed changes to bank CDS contracts to incorporate bail-in language.

Financials

as rumours persisted about a possible rights issue. The market was therefore not surprised when it announced a CHF330m rights issue, with the proceeds used to delever its balance sheet and bolster liquidity.

The new issue market continues to be active but with the increased volatility only three deals printed and one of

these, Equiniti, was a re-issue after the original deal was cancelled 24 hours earlier due to the lack of regulatory clearance. The other deals, taking the volume for the week to €1.07bn equivalent, came from UK food producer, Bakkavor and Swedish electrical installer, Bravida.

Robert Montague Senior Investment Analyst

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10ECM Credit Market Summary

European ABS markets were noticeably softer this week as the negative tone seen in wider markets worked its way into the asset class. A good indicator of sentiment is the level of bonds submitted for BWIC (Bids Wanted in Competition), effectively a market-wide auction process which is now the preferred method of selling ABS bonds. Morgan Stanley reported BWIC supply of $1.9bn equivalent this week, much increased from the weekly average of $650m seen in May and €300 seen in April (weekly averages from Citigroup). This additional supply of bonds has weighed on prices slightly and dealers have been noticeably less keen to bid for ABS bonds in the most affected sectors, eg UK Non-conforming RMBS and mezzanine CLO paper.

After weeks of speculation, the structure of Gagfah’s German Multifamily CMBS was publically announced on Thursday. The company is looking to place just under €2bn of notes ranging from AAA to BBB- and pricing is expected next week.

The Bank of England released Q1 2013 usage statistics for the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) on Monday. Eligible institutions took a total of £2.6bn in funding in the quarter but this figure is down significantly from the 2 previous quarters, which showed drawings of £9.5bn in Q4 2012 and £4.4bn in Q3 2012. Aggregate net lending declined by £300m in the quarter and now stands £1.8bn lower than at the June 2012, outset of the scheme. Whilst we have witnessed a few UK Prime RMBS deals being brought to market in recent weeks it is still reasonable to assume that the FLS will continue to cause low levels of UK Prime RMBS issuance for the foreseeable future.

Asset-Backed Securities

Jonathan WylesAsset Class Specialist Portfolio Manager

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11ECM Credit Market Summary

ECM in the MediaJune 2013

06 June‘Rigged’ credit markets a yield trap for the unwaryEuromoney

03 June 2013Whaam goes the bond market!IFR

01 June 2013Bankers raise primary market fears over FTTIFR/Reuters

31 May 2013Merlin Entertainment casts a large A&E spellEuroweek

30 May 2013CoCo fever coming to an end?SNL

29 May 2013UK Mutual Mull New Way to Raise CapitalThe Wall Street Journal

28 May 2013Euro mezz ABS takes a breatherStructured Credit Investor

22 May 2013Konvergenz der Assetklassen Loans und High YieldIPE Institutional Investment

20 May 2013Look on the Right SideThe Hedge Fund Journal

14 May 2013Investors more ‘discriminating’ on high-yieldFinancial News

13 May 2013ECM Asset Management’s Jen Vanbrabant believes Europe’s credit markets require particular attentionInvestment Europe

13 May 2013Frigoglass Debute Adds to Greek DebtEuroInvestor

11 May 2013Euro hybrids braced for overseas influxIFR

30 April 2013 High risks of European hybrid bonds outweigh high yieldFinancial Times

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12ECM Credit Market Summary

ECM Asset Management Limited 34 Grosvenor Street, London W1K 4QU Tel: +44 (0) 20 7529 7400 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7529 7411

Sources:Author photographs: MeltingPot Pictures

ECM is the trading name of ECM Asset Management Limited which is authorised and regulated by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority.

This document is:

• issued by ECM for information only;

• not investment advice;

• confidential and should not be disclosed other than to your professional advisers; and

• directed at persons (“Investment Professionals”) having professional experience in matters relating to investments, and any investment or investment activity to which this document relates is available only to and will be engaged in only with such persons.

If you are not an Investment Professional you should not read this document or participate in any meeting or other communication relating to it.

ECM accepts no liability for and gives no warranty or guarantee and makes no representation relating to the performance of any investments referred to in this document or to the accuracy and/or completeness of the information contained in this document. Any information contained in this document relating to any securities or issuer thereof is subject to the offering document relating thereto and does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, interests in the funds. Such an offer or solicitation can only be made pursuant to the applicable offering document, and any summaries contained herein are qualified in their entirety by reference to the more detailed discussion contained in each such offering document.

This document may be distributed only to persons permitted to receive it under applicable law and may not be distributed or passed to any person in any jurisdiction in which such distribution would violate any applicable law.

This document may not be distributed other than: (1) within the USA, to investors that are Accredited Investors within the meaning of Regulation D under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933; and (2) outside the USA, to non-US persons in offshore transactions in reliance on Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933.

ECM and its affiliates do not provide tax advice. Please note that: (1) any discussion of tax matters contained in this document (including any attachments) cannot be used by you for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties; (2) this document was written to support the promotion or marketing of the matters addressed herein; and (3) you should seek advice based on your particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

• Investments offered in the U.S. by Wells Fargo Funds Distributor, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC, Wells Fargo Funds Distributor, LLC. and ECM Asset Management Limited are affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company.

• NOT FDIC INSURED - NO BANK GUARANTEE - MAY LOSE VALUE PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.

ECM is authorised by the Financial Services Board of South Africa as a Financial Service Provider.