Apidos Capital Management has closed its fifth collateralized debt obligation, Apidos Quattro CLO, a $351 million portfolio led by Morgan Stanley. The firm closed its fourth transaction, Apidos IV, over the summer. Between assets held in vehicles $1.7 billion and warehoused assets, the firm just shy of its second anniversary now has $2 billion under management. It is currently working on another reverse inquiry transaction with Apidos V. Chris Allen, chief operating officer, declined comment about any potential future vehicles.
The firm did Quattro and Apidos IV so close together because there were a number of synergies, Allen explained. Morgan Stanley led both portfolios and there was a reverse inquiry for both from a significant equity investor. Allen declined to comment on the investor. Because the average size of the firm's vehicles are about $350 million, Apidos has been able to do more CDOs as compared to other managers that print larger vehicles.
"We try and distinguish ourselves by proactive portfolio management and heavy emphasis on relative value," Allen said.
Quattro's triple-As priced at 25 and similar to Apidos IV, has a bucket for second liens of about 10%. Gretchen Bergstresser, president and senior portfolio manager, and Managing Directors Anne McCarthy and John Stelwagon are the portfolio managers. The team has a total of 19 investment professionals, 10 focused on leveraged loans.
"Our model is not to be an index of the whole loan market," Bergstresser said. "We want to find the best names to invest in. We spend a lot of time on the new issue market and a lot of time evaluating and reevaluating existing positions."
Apidos was formed in January 2005 and is a Resource America company, which as of June 30, had $10.5 billion of assets under management. Its operations include Resource Financial Fund Management, the holding company for Apidos and Ischus Capital Management. It is also the manager of Trapeza Capital.