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| Philipp Mayer |
Vienna-based UNIQA Alternative Investments is looking to invest up to €75 million in collateralized loan obligations and another €40 million in euro-denominated commercial mortgage-backed and residential mortgage-backed deals, according to Philipp Mayer, portfolio manager. He focuses on asset- and mortgage-backeds. UNIQA is a specialist ABS and CDO manager with about €1.3 billion in third-party assets under management and is acquiring collateral to ramp up two CDOs of triple- and double-B collateral.
When investing in CLOs, Mayer said UNIQA will only participate in deals from experienced managers such as Babson Capital Europe and Alcentra Group.
In RMBS, Mayer currently favors bonds backed by Dutch collateral because of its high quality and the lack of spread tiering between regions. He recently participated in Aegon Life's €1.23 billion Saecure 5 transaction. "The triple-Bs offered 43 basis points, 2bps less than [Spanish bank] Bancaja's RMBS deal, but performance on Dutch deals has been very good despite a tough economic background."
On the CMBS side, Mayer noted double-Bs still offer an attractive pick-up over triple-Bs. "Double-B CMBS tranches are offering between 325 and 375bps, well above the 70bps offered for triple-Bs, yet the difference in subordination is only very small," the manager explained. "We prefer diversified CMBS to single-property portfolios," said Mayer, although he declined to discuss issuers or regions that offer good value.
