Sector developments and company hires

DLT powers bank subordinated debt deal
Blockchain-powered fixed income platform Brightvine and Angel Oak Capital Advisors have launched what is believed to be the first-ever bank subordinated debt issuance leveraging blockchain technology. A US$147.55m securitisation backed by subordinated debt issued by community banks across the US, BFNS 2022-1 leverages Brightvine Portal, a secure management platform for conducting primary offerings of digital assets via blockchain, to coordinate documentation and loan information among parties and increase efficiencies within the securitisation and diligence processes.

BFNS 2022-1 is Angel Oak's third community bank sub-debt securitisation since 2018 and the senior tranche received a Aa3 rating from Moody's. The securitisation consists of 31 issuers across 20 states, all with under US$10bn in assets.

Angel Oak and Brightvine will continue to collaborate on ways to use the blockchain to introduce immediate benefits to securitisations.

In other news…

Canyon closes third CLO equity fund
Canyon Partners has announced the US$230m close of the Canyon CLO Fund III, its third CLO equity fund to be managed by Canyon CLO Advisors. The fund primarily seeks to acquire majority equity positions in CLOs issued in the US and Europe that are managed by Canyon CLO Advisors. The fund has the flexibility to issue EU risk-retention compliant CLOs, as well as opportunistically invest a portion of the capital directly in dislocated loans and CLO liability tranches.

With the close of CLO Fund III, Canyon has raised an aggregate of approximately US$620m across its CLO funds. The firm's previous CLO funds were closed in 2015 and 2019.

Canyon currently manages 16 active CLOs and loan separate accounts, totalling more than US$8bn of assets under management. The firm's CLO strategy is focused on stable, high-quality portfolios designed to generate excess returns through patient portfolio construction, active management and optimised asset and liability timing and execution.