美国信贷市场周报

USCredit MarketsWeekly Wrap New year, new money The new year opened with a mix of transactions in the leveragedloan primary including two LBO financings and a fresh dose ofrepricings. The buyout financings, fromHologicandFinastraTCM, will bring a large chunk of new money to the market, asneither has existing term loan Bs. — Commentary, page 7 US leveraged loans ended 2025 with an above-average return,underpinned by resilient interest income despite secondarymarket weakness and a waning floating-rate advantage.— Monthly leveraged loan index feature, page 10 The new-issue high-yield market sprang into action this week,delivering a wave of refinancing-driven deals. Pro forma volumethrough Jan. 9 is $9.5 billion, up sharply from $3.3 billion in thefirst week of 2025. — Commentary, page 27 Inside this week... Rows: 11Columns: 8Sources: PitchBook | LCD; Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index Technicals Loan secondary: Hot water The secondary market has posted robust gains since the end of theholidays, led by the safer names. The average loan bid has risen 11bps in 2026 to 96.75, with B and BB loans offsetting declines in CCCs.A flurry of AI headlines swept across the media this week. Reportsemerged that Grok,xAI’s chatbot, was generating sexualized imagesof users on xAI. Critics alleged Grok digitally removed clothes fromusers when prompted via its so-called “Spicy Mode.” Repayments for the week ended Jan. 2 were $6.35B, down from$8.57B for the week ended Dec. 26. The trailing-52-week average is$5.75B. The forward calendar of institutional deals fell to $21.4B onJan. 7, from $22.3B on Dec. 30. For the week ended Jan. 2, $10.3Bof performing institutional loans were taken out. The amount ofperforming institutional loans has decreased 0.17%, to $1.54 trillionas of Jan. 2, from $1.543 trillion on Dec. 31, 2025. Private credit & middle market: Back at it High-yield primary: Risk on The private credit market kicked off 2026 with eyes on broadlysyndicated loan issuers that may look just as good in the privatecredit market. This week, asset managerRussell Investments, aBSL issuer, obtained a $1.225 billion credit facility to refinance itsterm loan. Funds affiliated with Apollo’s hybrid and credit strategiesprovided the financing. The company said it would use the proceedsto fully repay its term loan lenders. Thenew-issue high-yield market sprang into action this week,delivering a wave of refinancing-driven deals. Pro forma volumethrough Jan. 9 is $9.5 billion, up sharply from $3.3 billion in thefirst week of 2025. The asset class is off to a positive start to 2026,posting a 0.34% return through Jan. 7, according to the S&P USIssued High Yield Corporate Bond Index. The index’s average spreadtightened six basis points week-over-week, to T+265. Inside this week... High-grade: March of the giants High-yield secondary: Favorable conditionspage 28The secondary market started 2026 on a firm footing despite a fragilegeopolitical landscape as investors focused on a trickle of mostlydovish economic data and a deluge of new issuance driven by a 2029refinancing cliff. That’s as yields dropped to their lowest levels sincethe Fed first started hiking rates in early 2022, and spreads dipped toa 10-month low. The average bid for LCD’s 15-bond sample of flow-name high-yield bonds advanced 52 bps to a 14-week high of 94.39. AI and other animal spirits — and a towering maturity wall throughthe end of the decade — informed sell-side projections for recordIG issuance this year, and a sizzling start is only fueling a sense ofwhat’s possible. High-volume sessions at the start of 2026 — deskspriced more than $34 billion each on Monday and Tuesday, andnearly $17 billion on Wednesday — resulted in the biggest three-daytotal ($85.2 billion) on record, per LCD. Sources: PitchBook | LCD; Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Indexpage 36The Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index returned 0.25% forthe week ended Jan. 7, down from 0.26% during the same periodin 2025. BB loans returned 0.21% for the week. Single-B loansreturned 0.27%. CCC loans returned 0.20%. In the year to date, theAll Loans Index has outperformed the BB Loans Index at 0.25% to0.21%. Single-B loans have returned 0.27%, while CCC loans havereturned 0.20%.Text boxes: 1.5-2.5" x 0.3" (two 11 height rows) Distressed: Empty till page 30 Distressed news over the past several weeks has been exceedinglybusy, dominated by liability management exercises and a delugeof ratings agency downgrades. In corporate news, the auction forpackaging companyArdagh Group’s CDS was taking shape despitedisagreements. After an external panel of experts clarified the timingof the restructuring event, two funds are now clashing over whichassets issued by the company can be brought to the auction. Relative value The charts below illustrate four relative-value trend lines: the gap between (1) the YTM for primary price and secondary break price fo