KBRA Releases Recap of LSTA and DealCatalyst Annual CLO Conference

KBRA releases a recap of the annual CLO Conference hosted by the Loan Syndications & Trading Association (LSTA) and DealCatalyst, which took place at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on April 28-29. With up to 1,700 attendees, the conference comes on the heels of record U.S. CLO issuance of around $200 billion in 2024. This strong pace continued in first-quarter (Q1) 2025 with approximately $45 billion in total volume, as issuers pushed spreads to multiyear tights. The evolving U.S. tariff policy underscored virtually every panel and conversation, with dealers and other participants generally adopting a “wait-and-see” approach, as uncertainty has already pushed CLO spreads wider, clouding the issuance pace.

In this recap, we provide themes and highlights from select panel sessions, which focused on broadly syndicated loans (BSL), middle market (MM) CLOs, leveraged loans, direct lending, and private credit.

Click here to view the report.

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