Insights

Global property is at a crossroads. The build-to-rent sector is strengthening as urban rents spike across the world, but rising mortgage rates are hitting starter and family home markets. In the corporate world, North American Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) have improved since early 2021, but Industrial & Office REITs are showing signs of turning down as hybrid working persists.

The COVID outbreak led to widespread and rapid credit deterioration across multiple sectors; the subsequent recovery has been slower but has reversed much of the decline as economies have re-opened. But with war, supply shocks, inflation and rising rates, the improvement across multiple sectors has stalled and a growing number of them are turning down again.

Many credit portfolio managers expect default rates – currently around 2% – to be sharply higher in 2023, but the scale of the increase is still a major unknown. A useful metric to anticipate rising defaults is credit volatility – if this trends higher, credit category transition rates will increase, including transitions into default.

Inflation dominated Q3 financial news, and the resulting short rate squeeze is biting while credit volatility is rising and the COVID recovery is running out of steam. Risk indicators are high in the UK, and oil and gas price volatility has brought havoc to Europe. In North America, weaker credit trends are appearing in several sectors. Believe it or not, there are some bright spots amidst this turmoil. This whitepaper elaborates on some of these trends and shows where credit could be headed next.

The Business Development Company sector in the US has grown steadily over the past 20 years. While BDCs allow retail investors to gain liquid exposure to portfolios of private companies, their historically high returns have been dented recently by some steep falls in valuations and – in some cases – discounts to net asset values.

In the newly published special report from Structured Credit Investor (SCI), Mark Faulkner, co-founder, Credit Benchmark, investigates how Credit Consensus data can help support growth in SRT activity.