Strategic Income Quarterly Update – July 2022

The European Central Bank (ECB) is reportedly accelerating its work on a digital version of the euro (the dEuro), having seen the US pass the Genius Act in July which paved the way for broader adoption of so-called stablecoins.

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.

We have long harked on about the strength of the technical in credit, with solid fundamentals, resilient inflows and defensive positioning continuing to provide a tailwind for the market.

On Thursday, markets received preliminary Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figures for August. As a reminder, PMIs are timely indicators of trends in manufacturing and services, with a number above 50 signalling an expansion and below 50 a contraction.

Restricted Tier 1 (RT1) investors have been woken from an otherwise sleepy summer after Allianz Group, one of the largest insurers and asset managers globally, brought a $1.25bn deal to the market on Tuesday.

Urbaser, a Spanish waste management specialist, came to the market last week with a controversial new deal. The company launched a €1bn payment-in-kind (PIK) toggle note to fund a dividend to its owner Platinum Equity, just six weeks after it issued a new €2.3bn debt package to refinance its existing debt and fund a further €1bn of dividends.