Sector developments and company hires

CLO conflicts of interest eyed
IOSCO has issued four questionnaires for industry participants on conduct risks in leveraged loans (LLs) and CLOs targeting bank lenders, CLO investors, CLO managers and LL sponsors. Through its Committee 3 on Regulation of Market Intermediaries and its Committee 5 on Investment Management, IOSCO is conducting work to understand the potential conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives among participants in the LL and CLO markets across the chain of intermediation, from credit origination to the sale to investors. 

The purpose of the questionnaires is to support IOSCO’s project by furthering its understanding of the LL and CLO markets. In particular, the questionnaires seek to determine where potential conflicts of interest and conduct issues may exist and how they are managed by the respective market participants. IOSCO will consider the questionnaire responses when formulating any report regarding LLs and CLOs.

The submission deadline for responses is 30 June 2021.

North America
Jason Merrill has joined Everest Re as senior portfolio manager, structured credit investing, after a three-month stint as vp, structured securities at Kuvare Insurance Services (SCI 8 February). Before that, he was an investment specialist responsible for trading and analysis of ABS, CLOs and non-agency RMBS at Penn Mutual Asset Management, which he joined in March 2013.

Rob Russell has been appointed head of Greystone Special Servicing. As president of this group, he will focus on its continued growth and will further integrate special servicing with Greystone’s existing primary servicing division, led by Sharon Briskman. With a tenure of almost a decade at Greystone, Russell has been overseeing the production and operations of the firm’s CMBS lending platform and has spearheaded the launch of a number of specialised debt products, including Greystone’s CMBS mezzanine platform.

Loomis Sayles has promoted Stephen LaPlante and Jennifer Thomas to portfolio manager for two securitised strategies managed by the mortgage and structured finance (MSF) team. In their new roles, the pair will manage the Loomis Sayles Investment Grade Securitized Credit strategy with Alessandro Pagani, head of the MSF team, and join Pagani and Stephen L’Heureux in co-managing the Loomis Sayles High Yield Securitized Credit strategy. Both LaPlante and Thomas will retain their senior analyst roles and responsibilities until suitable replacements are identified.

Thomas joined Loomis Sayles in 2007 and has 19 years of investment experience. She specialises in ABS, with a focus on consumer ABS.

LaPlante joined Loomis Sayles in 2017 as a mortgage and structured finance analyst and has 11 years of investment industry experience. He specialises in RMBS and covered bonds.

Under the leadership of Pagani, the MSF team helps oversee US$31.1bn in securitised investments across the firm in both dedicated mandates and as part of broader investment strategies (as of 31 March 2021).

Structured credit fund closed
Alcentra has announced the final close of the Alcentra Structured Credit Opportunities Fund IV at US$484m. The fund’s objective is to generate attractive absolute and risk-adjusted returns through opportunistic investing in structured credit debt and equity securities in the US and Europe. The fund’s investors include leading sovereign wealth, public and corporate pension funds, not-for-profits and insurance firms from Asia, Europe and the US.

Led by Cathy Bevan and Hiram Hamilton, Alcentra’s structured credit platform consists of eight specialists located in London and New York, including md Brandon Chao, who acts as co-portfolio manager on Alcentra Structured Credit Funds. This latest fundraising brings assets under management for Alcentra’s structured credit platform to over US$8bn across a combination of open and closed end funds and separately managed accounts, and firm AUM to US$42.4bn, as of 31 March 2021.