European CLO managers are busy wrapping up deals before they set off to sunny Barcelona for the Global ABS conference.

With that on the horizon, five CLOs priced this week, representing €2bn. This takes European CLO issuance year-to-date to €20.30bn for new issue paper and €26.34bn overall — bear in mind most bank research is now predicting around €30bn of new CLO supply in 2024, two-thirds of this year’s issuance hard graft might have been done.

There are certainly signals that 2024 issuance has been front-loaded. Triple-As remaining range bound for the year given the strong technicals, and a large portion of CLO-friendly loan assets are trading significantly above par.