Two bids wanted in competition on portfolios totaling a little more than $200 million in assets hit the market this week amid a larger rally. Bids were due Tuesday on a $67 million portfolio launched out of Bank of America, and bids are due tomorrow on a $137 million portfolio.
“It’s cats and dogs,” one portfolio manager said of the names in the portfolio, adding he bid on a few things in the smaller BWIC. “It’s not a very attractive portfolio.” He noted the portfolio was a number of middle market names and appeared to be an old TRS program. It could not be determined where the second portfolio was from, but the portfolio manager said it was shown by Credit Suisse. He noted a rally in the broader market gave people confidence to try to sell some tougher names. “The stronger market makes you go elsewhere to look for value. What’s out there [in the BWICs] has been picked over,” he said.
Another portfolio manager agreed and was eager to see if they would trade. “People are basically reaching down to the tougher part of the portfolio. People are trying to see if the stuff that really had no active bid before if people are starting to sniff around,” he said. “My guess is that for a lot of them, the bid/ask spread is still too wide.”
The larger portfolio includes a $10 million piece of Stratus Technologies, $6 million of Workflow Management and $6.5 million of Trident Resources.
