Sunny days ahead for the US CLO market as the US District Court for DC issued an order to vacate US risk retention rules for US BSL CLOs on 5 April 2018.
Although there is still a miniscule chance that the agencies could appeal to the US Supreme Court before May 2018, the market is steaming ahead. US issuance levels had exceeded $32bn from 57 deals by the end of last week (versus $17bn from 32 deals for the same period last year) and refis and resets continue on at a strong pace. A number of US managers have now issued new CLOs, resets and refis without any risk retention.
This augers well for the US CLO market with many commenters predicting a record breaking 2018 in terms of issuance levels.
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'Open-market' CLOs were legally freed from US risk retention rules yesterday, although the threat of a Supreme Court appeal remains until May