By Katy Burne
Blackstone Group (BX) unit GSO Capital Partners has filed
paperwork to launch the first actively managed exchange-traded fund
dedicated to high-yield corporate loans, apparently sensing demand
for floating-rate loans secured on company assets amid exaggerated
price swings in fixed-rate "junk" bonds.
GSO, based in New York, filed preliminary registration papers
for the "leveraged" loan ETF and is waiting for the Securities and
Exchange Commission to approve the project. The manager of $51
billion in credit assets is acting as a sub-adviser to giant ETF
provider State Street Global Advisors.
Peter Rose, a spokesman for GSO, declined to comment. Marie
McGehee, a spokeswoman for State Street, also declined to
comment.
According to an April 20 filing, the investment objective of the
SPDR Blackstone/GSO Senior Loan ETF is to outperform a commonly
used loan index, the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100, by
"normally investing at least 80% of its net assets ... in senior
loans."
Leveraged loans are increasingly popular with investors. Loan
default rates are well below historical averages, loans rank above
bonds in the capital structure and they offer yields above those on
super-safe Treasurys and higher-quality corporate debt.
Many investors also have been looking to allocate money into
loans because they offer a hedge against future interest-rate
hikes, even though rates are forecast to stay low through 2014.
Since loans are priced off a floating benchmark, which rises as
absolute rates do, they are less likely to hurt investors as rates
ramp up, something that--while far off--could happen quickly.
New deal supply also may foreshadow a gradual shift into loans.
Junk-bond issuance so far in the second quarter stands at $46.9
billion, about half of the issuance from the first quarter,
according to data provider Dealogic. Leveraged loan deal volume, by
comparison, has reached $82 billion this quarter, 72% of the first
quarter's supply, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Some recent junk bond deals have been shelved or cancelled. So
far in the second quarter of 2012, high-yield mutual funds and ETFs
had $2.8 billion of outflows, but there have been $1.3 billion of
inflows into loan funds, albeit with the last three weeks seeing
outflows, according to fund tracker Lipper.
What is stopping a rush into leveraged loans is their inferior
returns. Junk bonds yield more and have performed better this year
on a total-return basis. As of June 15, junk bonds yielded 7.82%
versus 6.81% for leveraged loans, index data from Credit Suisse
show.
However, junk bonds are deemed riskier and investors have
started to worry that bondholders are not being paid enough to take
on that additional risk in below-investment-grade debt.
The trailing 12-month U.S. high-yield default rate rose to 2.2%
in May, topping 2% for the first time since October 2010, Fitch
Ratings said on Thursday.
Leveraged loan prices are expected to be propped up thanks to a
resurgence in collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, whose
backers acquire loans and package them up so they can be sold on to
investors. CLOs issuance so far this year is already at $16.2
billion and many of those deals still need to be filled with
loans.
For the full year 2011, mutual funds focusing on loans took in
$13.3 billion and junk-bond mutual funds took in only $8.2 billion,
according to Lipper. There were outflows from loan funds in the
second half of last year because the CLO market comeback was not in
full swing at that point.
Lipper says there are currently only two loan ETFs: the
PowerShares Senior Loan (BKLN) and the iShares Floating Rate Note
(FLOT).
The market for loan ETFs is $704 million, less than 3% of the
size of the junk-bond ETF market, meaning loans in theory should be
more stable in the face of jittery individual investors fleeing
risky assets and demanding redemptions from bond ETFs.
Write to Katy Burne at katy.burne@dowjones.com