Where to hunt for the best credit opportunities

Teiki Benveniste from Ares shares where he is finding opportunities in global credit markets.
Chris Conway

Livewire Markets

Things have changed dramatically in markets over the past 12 months and there is a very specific place to hunt for credit assets right now, according to Teiki Benveniste from Ares.

In his eyes, the macro conditions dictate that low-duration, fixed rate assets that are heavily discounted are the sweet spot.

So high-yield bonds, single-B, trading at 90 cents on the dollar. It's a pretty attractive proposition, if you do your credit work, and you can see that it's a corporate or a bond that should not default.

In this Expert Insights, Benveniste explains how we got here, why he is hunting where he is, and his outlook for credit markets moving forward. 

Note: This interview was filmed on 9 August, 2023



Edited transcript 

How has the fixed income landscape changed over the last year?

A year ago, there was no shortage of challenges for the fixed income market. You were looking at rates worries, inflation worries, recession worries, people are talking about stagflation, and things like that.

And it's not surprising that you've seen across the fixed income market, but also across other markets, some pretty high levels of volatility, and negative returns in 2022.

2023 is proving to be a better environment. You've got those recession fears abating, people talking about a soft landing, and Central Banks actually being able to pull that out of the bag. You've got strong earnings, compared to expectations. You are seeing very strong job markets in the US, so all of that seems to be pointing to a much more supportive environment.

If you look at the performance of asset classes, last year US equities were down 18%, US loans were down probably around a percent. In the first six months of the year, what you've seen is loans are about +6%, and equities were +17%, so a very different environment.

Having said that, when we look at what's happening out there, I think we still feel that volatility is going to be a theme of the market, because of the uncertainty. 

Because, while earnings have been better, the forward guidance is still pretty soft, because what you will see is that the impact of higher interest rates is going to start to really impact some of those corporates, and you start seeing defaults increasing.

Therefore, when we look at that environment, we're thinking again, security selection is going to be absolutely crucial, and trying to really try and dampen that volatility, is going to be crucial to outperform.

What is your outlook for fixed income in the year ahead?

If you look at fixed income, and the themes out there, obviously, there's a higher level of volatility from the uncertainty around rates and inflation. In this environment, on one day you're getting some pretty positive numbers coming out on jobs, on inflation, and markets move one way, and then another. So, we're seeing very short bursts of volatility in markets.

Going forward, it's also going to be key that, with those higher rates, we'll see defaults increasing in markets. 

Our expectation is that for leveraged loans, and high-yield bonds, coming off a very low base of defaults, you're going to start seeing them going back to historical averages of 2.5, 3.5, 4.5%.

But also, we don't expect those defaults to spike much higher than that. Because we've just had a cycle where corporates refinanced in 2020, pushed out their maturities, and have quite good interest cover ratios. So, the starting point is pretty strong.

But we expect to see more dispersion in the corporates that have over-levered, have overstretched, and are in sectors that are challenged.

Are you concerned about default rates and how do you manage this risk?

We do expect default rates to increase because they have been extremely low. We expect that in the next 12 months, we'll see these rates increase again to around 3.5-4.5% of the market.

We don't expect to see them going back to the levels observed during the GFC, which for loans were around just above 10%, and for high-yield bonds, around 20%.

And that's because, when you look at the fundamentals of those corporates, they've refinanced themselves since 2020. They've pushed out the maturities of their debt, so you don't really have a wall of maturity coming at you that would push those defaults much higher.

And secondly, corporates generally default when they cannot service their debt. Their serviceability levels are at very good levels compared to their historical levels of leverage, despite softening a bit recently because of higher rates.

That doesn't really support the view of a default cycle with anything like 10% or more defaults over the next 12 months.

Where are the opportunities and risks in the fixed-income market right now?

If you look at the uncertainty around rates and the potential volatility with longer-duration assets, we're very conscious of that. So, we're not pushing our portfolio very much further, in terms of the duration risk spectrum.

The Ares Global Credit Income Fund currently has about one year or less of duration. We're starting to buy fixed-rate assets that are heavily discounted – they've sold off quite significantly because they're fixed-rate.

So, high-yield bonds, single-B-grade trading at 90 cents on the dollar. It's a pretty attractive proposition, if you do your credit work, and you can see that it's a corporate or a bond that should not default. So at maturity, you should get par back.

There is a lot of convexity, and there's also a lot of optionality, because those corporate bonds tend to be repaid before their maturity. If there is a corporate action, like an acquisition, for example, then they would get taken out at par. There's a lot of optionality there, which we like.

We also really like shorter-dated loans, with high levels of current yield. That's because the price volatility is mitigated for shorter-dated assets. They have high levels of current yield, so you're getting very attractive levels of current income.

These are things that we really like, but again, credit security selection is going to be key, because of those rising default risks. That's also key because corporates that miss their earnings tend to see their loans and bonds punished in the secondary market, from a price perspective. If you don't select these assets appropriately, that could add volatility to a portfolio.

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Chris Conway
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