Tetragon – Ready To Be A Star

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alternative assets, asset managers, CLOs, hedge fund seeding, Leon Cooperman, leveraged loans, Paddy Dear, Polygon, Reade Griffith, residual equity tranches, Tetragon Financial Group, TFG

Continued from here.

The ultra-quick recap:  Leveraged loans avoid most interest-rate price risk & enjoy better (default) recoveries than junk bonds, while CLOs offer diversification & loss mitigation, plus varying levels of tranche risk. These defensive attributes, coupled with current CLO yield spreads, may offer the best credit opportunity for 2013.

I like that risk/reward profile, but honestly, current yields & potential returns from leveraged loans/most CLO tranches don’t offer the level of return I’m seeking. Yes, you know where this is going… I want to take those defensive attributes & re-invest them into a more aggressive investment – residual equity tranches!

Time now for a proper introduction:  Tetragon Financial Group (TFG:NA)

Tetragon IPO’d at $10 in 2007, as an Amsterdam listed closed-end investment company, primarily investing in US CLO residual equity tranches. Some funds & business development companies (BDCs) have recently added CLO equity exposure, but TFG’s one of the few pure plays out there. It’s managed by Tetragon Financial Management (TFM), which is controlled by the founders of Polygon Global Partners. Um, let’s just dive straight into the bad stuff…

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Where’s The Credit Opportunity In 2013?

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CDOs, CLOs, Collateralized Loan Obligations, Colony Financial, Fed, income/dividend bubble, junk bonds, leveraged loans, mortgage hedge funds

Owning Colony Financial (CLNY:US) was v rewarding. I bought it as a cheap distressed assets play, but I suspect my gains actually came from income investors, who are now rushing into the stock. That got me thinking… And it hammered home a couple of lessons: a) Never under-estimate the desperation of income investors, and (more seriously) b) Don’t fight the Fed! Now, that may sound like a contrarian challenge to some – sure, sometimes it can prove v profitable to fight a rising tide.

Except surfing the big waves is simply far more rewarding most of the time. Do you really want to be the investor who faces down the Fed’s steamrolling printing press? Especially with a ravenous horde of zombie income investors chasing after it?!

But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to exploit those lessons. Look around, most yields are too low, most prices too high… Look at property REITs, mortgage REITs, MLPs, closed-end funds (esp. Pimco!), and other assorted dividend story stocks. Most are now sporting fairly nauseating valuations & leverage – while the dregs are simply Ponzi schemes, relentlessly issuing stock & debt to fund excessive dividends. But what’s the alternative – Treasuries?! Oh please, just stab me with a rusty fork.