Winner: Golub Capital Partners CLO 18(M)-R2

A second reset of a middle market CLO upsized for a second time to now stand at over US$1.2bn would be notable enough. But GC Investment Management’s Golub Capital Partners CLO 18(M)-R2, arranged by SMBC Nikko, was also successfully priced while the market was still coming to terms with a new benchmark and amid heightened market volatility following the invasion of Ukraine only a month earlier and is SCI’s middle market CLO Deal of the Year.

The deal was originally issued in March 2014 totalling US$453.4m and previously refinanced in October 2017, when it was increased to US$898.5m. The previous iteration of notes were repaid in full on 18(M)-R2’s 21 April 2022 refinancing date.

Alan George, Managing Director, Head of Structured Products at Golub Capital, recalls: “The deal was done in March and there was still quite a bit of fact-finding that needed to be done in terms of where the CLO market was going to be in a post-Libor world.”

He continues: “We needed to navigate and problem-solve to get the deal done. You had people still trying to figure out what the bid-ask was going to be on new CLO formation, while worrying about the impact of geo-political factors over the longer term. All the while, liabilities were also becoming more expensive.”

Despite the somewhat significant widening of liabilities at that point in time, Golub Capital took the decision to act. “As we typically do, we continue to issue through volatile periods and we, of course, work closely with our investors,” George says.

For the full list of winners in this year’s SCI Middle Market CLO Awards click here.