Falling CLO issuance hits US leveraged loan market

New York

SOME of the biggest buyers of company loans are scaling back, and it is hurting the market for buyout debt.

Money managers that buy loans and repackage them into bonds have cut back on their activity. Sales of the rebundled loans, known as collateralised loan obligations (CLOs), dropped 25 per cent in the first half of December from the same period last year, after falling 10 per cent in November.