BNP Paribas received three prestigious industry awards, solidifying our position as a leading player in the growing CLO space. Winning the coveted CLO Bank of the Year and US CLO Deal of the Year from GlobalCapital in their annual US Securitization Awards and Best Performing Private Credit CLO of the Year from DealCatalyst in their U.S. CLO Awards acknowledges BNP Paribas’ commitment to clients across the US CLO market and represents a significant achievement for the bank.
We are grateful to the US market for recognizing our efforts to consistently provide valuable customized advice to clients, innovative deal structures, and enable efficient pricing across the CLO market segments. Our ability to maximize global distribution—combined with our strengths in deal execution and deep understanding of the CLO market—allows us to deliver the top-rated service our clients deserve.
Adnan Zuberi, Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Capital Markets Americas, BNP Paribas
Recognition of delivering for clients across the US CLO market
In 2023, CLO new issuance remained the focus as banks balanced their existing BSL CLO pipelines with the explosive growth of the middle market and private credit CLOs. This required out-of-the-box thinking for banks to expand their Issuer footprints as crossover investors between both markets increased. In the last few years, BNP Paribas has significantly grown its securitization platform and US market share of new CLO issuance to deliver effective and timely solutions in a competitive and demanding market environment.
The CLO franchise resides in the bank’s Asset Finance and Securitization (AFS) division and is integral to its full suite of structured finance offerings in securitization markets. BNP Paribas’ strong balance sheet and alignment of its structured credit distribution and trading arm have enabled us to achieve efficient pricing, execution and liquidity on the CLOs it leads.
BNP Paribas’ focus on providing creative structural solutions to complex problems and partnering with our Issuers to navigate difficult markets has been integral to the growth of the US CLO business over the last few years. That, combined with the stability and organic growth of the CLO Structuring and Syndicate teams, has provided our clients confidence in our ability to execute on their behalf across volatile markets.
Growing with global partners
BNP Paribas works with a broad stable of CLO managers active across both US and European CLO markets and is a top-ranked CLO warehouse provider for both regions. Our proven track record of successful CLO executions provides balance sheet velocity and is in line with AFS’ originate-to-distribute focus while providing our large clients stable financing when working with the bank.
The bank’s significant presence and reputation across key locations around the globe allows us to resourcefully tap into a deep and broad investor base while leading the syndication of CLO transactions. Ranking in the top 5 on US league tables and topping European arranger tables has given the bank more visibility to investors, which enables us to connect with a deeper base across the globe and improves our execution.
In a testament to the breadth and reach of our global CLO capabilities and investor relationships across regions, GlobalCapital’s 2024 European Securitization Awards also earlier acknowledged our role as lead arranger of Spire Partners’ Aurium CLO XI, which won the 2024 CLO Deal of the Year award.
US CLO Deal of the Year win
At $1.3 billion, Golub Capital Partners’ CLO 69(M) was the largest new CLO in 2023 and the largest CLO since 2019. It was crowned as CLO Deal of the Year by GlobalCapital, selected through an online poll of market participants, and Best Performing Private Credit CLO of the Year by DealCatalyst through votes by members of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA). BNP Paribas served as sole structuring agent and lead placement agent, supporting Golub Capital, the most active CLO issuer in the US in 2023.
This was the bank’s first primary CLO execution with Golub Capital, showcasing an execution strategy focused on expanding Golub’s investor base and utilizing BNP Paribas’ strong global presence to bring in first time investors to both the Golub platform as well as to Middle Market CLOs more broadly. The strategic breadth of the investor book enabled a transaction upsize from $500mm to $1.34bn and led to multiple follow-on CLO mandates with the Golub team.
Zuberi notes, “We are pleased that our goal to manage a high-quality US pipeline and liquidity, bring a diverse set of global opportunities to CLO investors, and be a trusted partner for our clients has been acknowledged in the US market, and we are committed to continued innovation across the complexity of market cycles.”