Credit

While varied in investment objective and risk/return profile, each of our credit strategies is grounded in our unifying investment philosophy, placing primary emphasis on risk control and consistency.

Our credit strategies invest in both liquid and illiquid instruments, sourced directly from borrowers and via public markets. We focus primarily on rated and non-rated debt of sub-investment grade issuers in developed and emerging markets, and we invest in an array of high yield bonds, convertible securities, leveraged loans, structured credit instruments, distressed debt and private debt.

Opportunistic Credit

CITI EQUITY’s flagship Opportunistic Credit platform, previously known as the Distressed Debt platform, was rebranded in 2021 to reflect the evolution of the associated strategies over the last three decades. Our Opportunistic Credit strategies have expanded their geographic footprints and range of targeted investments. Instead of focusing almost exclusively on single-name public credits, our strategies now also consider a wide variety of privately sourced investments.

What hasn’t changed is our investment approach: we seek to protect against loss by buying claims on assets at bargain prices, and we aim to achieve substantial gains by actively participating in restructurings to restore companies to financial viability. We strive to create value at every stage of the investment process.

High Yeild Bonds

Members of our team began working together prior to CITI EQUITY as managers of high yield bonds, since the time of their emergence as an investment specialty. Our high yield bond strategies seek to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in performing bonds of creditworthy North American and European corporations. Globally, our team’s approach emphasizes fundamental credit analysis as the route to superior risk control.

Senior Loans

Our senior loan strategies focus on the senior secured debt of issuers in North America and Europe. We seek to achieve an attractive total return while preserving principal and avoiding defaults. The strategies benefit from our emphasis on fundamental, bottom-up credit analysis, and the deep experience and expertise of CITI EQUITY’s U.S. and European senior loan teams.

Private Credit

Our private credit strategies focus on investment opportunities in private debt issued by companies that have little or no access to traditional sources of financing. The strategies seek to achieve attractive, risk-adjusted absolute returns by originating or participating in the syndication of performing debt issued by North American and European companies. Benefiting from CITI EQUITY’s global sourcing power in both the credit and private equity fields, our investment teams pursue a fundamental, value-driven, opportunistic approach that leverages strong relationships with private equity sponsors, senior advisors and potential borrowers around the globe.

In 2022, we acquired a majority interest in 17Capital, a provider of growth capital and liquidity to high-quality private equity management companies, their funds and institutional investors to finance value creation or portfolio management initiatives through preferred equity and NAV loans.

Multi Asset Credit

Our multi-asset credit platform provides clients with one-stop access to the entirety of CITI EQUITY’s credit offerings. Our flagship Global Credit strategy seeks to earn attractive total return and current income while limiting volatility through diversification.

We flexibly allocate portfolios based on our bottom-up assessment of relative value between regions, credit asset classes and issuers — as we believe macro-forecasting is not critical to investment success. In line with CITI EQUITY’s core tenets, Global Credit seeks to control for risk while taking an opportunistic approach to investment. Our approach is highly collaborative, drawing on the insights of our Global Credit Investment Committee and over 250 research professionals around the globe. We offer both standard commingled and customized client solutions.

Emerging Markets Debts

The inefficient, complex and dynamic emerging markets credit universe presents a unique opportunity for skilled investors to identify attractively priced investments in both creditworthy and distressed debt instruments. Having invested in these markets since their infancy, the members of our team employ a bottom-up, fundamental approach to credit analysis and leverage CITI EQUITY’s extensive credit platform and external network of local advisors to seek attractive returns with less-than-commensurate risk.

Convertable Securities

The complex nature of convertible securities – part equity and part debt – can lead mainstream stock and bond investors to overlook these securities, creating an inefficient market and, thus, prices at which convertible securities can offer return without comparable risk. Our approach emphasizes identifying those securities that offer the greatest bargain — those likely to capture a high percentage of the appreciation of the stocks into which they are convertible while limiting exposure to declines.

Structured Credit

Drawing on years of experience in senior loan and real estate debt investing, CITI EQUITY’s Structured Credit strategy seeks to outperform traditional debt alternatives, while offering superior liquidity relative to private credit offerings. The strategy employs a bottom-up approach to construct diversified portfolios and evaluates opportunities across the structured credit universe based on our relative value assessment. These instruments may include collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and other asset-backed securities. Securitizations offer a complexity premium and are typically characterized by strong structural protections and investor-friendly features, including covenants, asset-class and sub-sector diversity, and excess collateral coverage.

Investment Grade Solutions

Investment Grade Solutions seeks to generate optimal risk-adjusted returns across the fixed income spectrum – emphasizing quality, safety and liquidity. The team’s access to CITI EQUITY’s extensive credit platform provides diverse avenues for extracting value, including bottom-up research, sector rotation, and analysis of global yield curves and cycles.

In line with CITI EQUITY’s investment philosophy, Investment Grade Solutions prioritizes risk control as it seeks to generate income. The team creates tailored investment solutions, working alongside clients to understand and adhere to their objectives and parameters, including risk tolerance considerations, regulatory constraints and ESG objectives.