Asset Backed Securities

TwentyFour Asset Management's Aza Teeuwen reflects on a volatile start to 2026, and explains why European ABS continues to provide relative stability over the quarter, particularly in investment grade.

Recent developments involving Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell have raised fresh questions around central bank independence, the politicisation of monetary policy, and the future of Fed leadership, particularly with his term as Chair due to expire in May 2026.

Historically, one of the key sources of stability in European ABS has been ratings. The market has long seen upgrades consistently outnumber downgrades, even during periods of stress, most recently during Covid-19.

TwentyFour Asset Management’s Douglas Charleston highlights 2025 as another year in which European ABS delivered solid positive returns over risk-free rates, with lower-than-expected volatility despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.

European ABS investors saw just the second solar loan-backed deal price recently, a German offering titled Golden Ray 2. The transaction marks a further incremental development towards sustainable financing in the European securitisation market. It also comes at a time when the much larger and established US solar market has encountered headwinds.

As we approach the end of a year that has seen risk assets shrug off US tariffs and mounting concerns over AI-driven tech valuations, TwentyFour Asset Management’s portfolio management team selects the seven key questions that they believe will define 2026 for fixed income investors.

In our latest Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) quarterly update, Aza Teeuwen, Partner and Co-Head of ABS, explains how strong CLO issuance, robust investor demand and tightening spreads have driven a standout year for the European ABS market.

Following the end of quantitative easing in 2023, the European ABS market has gone from strength to strength and 2025 is set to overtake the post-2008 new issuance record set in 2024.

Collateralised loan obligations, or CLOs, have become an increasingly popular asset class within global fixed income.

The $5.2tr asset-backed finance (ABF) market represents a growing opportunity to gain exposure to high quality loan pools and the returns they can generate.

A French CMBS transaction named River Green – a deal we exited a few years ago at a price in the mid-90s as part of a broader review of our CMBS exposure – has come under renewed scrutiny after a new valuation triggered expectations of principal losses on what were originally AAA rated bonds. Here’s how we got here.

With the summer holiday season fast approaching, now feels like a good moment to pause and take stock of developments in the European ABS market year-to-date.