Singapore's Lion Capital Management, one of Asia's few collateralized debt obligation managers, has rolled out a synthetic CDO. The USD10 million structure references a pool of 130 global names.
"This is part of an ongoing program of single-tranche CDOs," said an official involved in the transaction, noting additional launches are planned for the coming months. Dubbed Lion City CDO Series 5, the structure is linked to a notional of USD1 billion and has been rated AAA by Standard & Poor's, with Lehman Brothers as the arranger. Frank Lu, associate at S&P in Hong Kong, said the portfolio is primarily comprised of U.S. and European names to insure diversity.
Leon Hindle, senior v.p. at Lehman in Hong Kong, explained investors in the region are becoming more interested in local managers. "In general there's been growing receptiveness to Asian managers with global portfolios," said Hindle. "Small or medium size managers in the U.S. are unable to offer the same level of service as managers in the same time zone." Credit officials at Lion Capital declined comment.
