RISK MANAGEMENT

SIR JAVED IQBAL

CHAPTER 12: New Ways To Transfer

Credit Risk – And Their Implications
17/12/2020

Presenters
Iqra Amjad BB-18-35(Mor)
Sidra BB-18-32(Mor)
What is Credit Transfer?
Refers to mechanisms used by banks to transfer and disperse credit exposures
to third parties. This happens mainly through 2 instruments:

Novel Credit Instruments Securitization

e.g. Credit Default Swaps e.g. Collateralized Debt Obligations
(CDSs) (CDOs)

Innovation in Credit-risk Transfer

• Management of credit risks
• New credit instruments
 Enhanced efficiency of credit markets
 Bank loans priced sharply
 Source of funds expand
 ‘Traditional’ credit risk enhancement Techniques

Bond Insurance
The issuer purchases insurance to protect the purchaser of the bond (in the
corporate debt market, it is usually the lender who buys default protection).

Guarantees
Type of insurance. A guarantee or letter of credit from a third party of a
higher credit quality than the counterparty reduces the credit risk
exposure of any transaction.

Collateral
The most ancient way to protect a lender from loss. The degree to which a
bank suffers a loss following a default event is often driven largely by the
liquidity and value of any collateral securing the loan. Collateral values can be
quite volatile, and in some markets they fall at the same time that the
probability of a default event rises.
 ‘Traditional’ credit risk enhancement Techniques
Early Termination
Lenders and borrowers sometimes agree to terminate a transaction by means
of a mid-market quote on the occurrence of an agreed-upon event, such as a
credit downgrade.

Re-assignment
A reassignment clause conveys the right to assign one’s position as a
counterparty to a third party in the event of a ratings downgrade.

Netting
A legally enforceable process. When a counterparty has entered into several
transactions with the same institution, some with positive and others with
negative replacement values, then, under a valid netting agreement, the net
replacement value represents the true credit risk exposure.
 ‘Traditional’ credit risk enhancement Techniques
Marking to Market
Counterparties sometimes agree to periodically make the market value of a transaction
transparent and then transfer any change in value from the losing side to the winning side
of the transaction. This is one of the most efficient credit enhancement techniques, and in
many circumstances it can practically eliminate credit risk. However, it requires
sophisticated monitoring and back-office systems.

Put Options
Many of the put options traditionally embedded in corporate debt securities also provide
investors with default protection, in the sense that the investor holds the right to force
early redemption at a pre-specified price—e.g., par value.

Primary/Loan Syndication
Traditional way for banks to share the credit risk of making very large loans to borrowers.
The loan is sold to third-party investors so that the originating reach their desired holding
level.
• Lead banks have large share of risk & fees
• Structured to accommodate
• Leveraged loans = issued at LIBOR + >=150 basis points
Why are the new bank techniques & instruments so
revolutionary?
• Techniques to mitigate risk
• Reduce credit risk but lack flexibility
• Difficult to redistribute
• Credit derivatives designed to deal with this
• Credit Derivatives?
Such as credit default swaps (CDS), are off-balance-sheet arrangements that allow
one party to transfer the credit risk of a reference asset to another party without
actually selling the asset. They allow users to strip credit risk away from market
risk and to transfer credit risk independently of funding and relationship
management concerns.
Has its own unique set of risks.
Counter party must make sure that they understand the amount & nature of the
risk that is transferred by the derivative contract and that the contract is
enforceable.
• Securitization: Practice of repackaging of loans and other assets into securities
that can then be sold to investors.
• Credit restructuring techniques are rapidly developed
• Contributing to ‘price discovery’ of credit
• ‘credit risk’ of traditional banking evolve to ‘market risk of credit risk’
 Credit Markets are driving change in Banks

• Portfolios more concentrated in less creditworthy obligors

• Banks more vulnerable during economic downturns
• Two forces have combined to lead to a concentration of low-quality
credits:
 “Disintermediation” of banks
Borrow from investors rather than individual banks
 More economical for banks to extend credit to lower-credit-quality
obligors
• Difficult to earn returns on credit extensions
• Not profitable to hold loans until they mature
• Profitable to concentrate on origination & servicing of loans
• Solid business relationships/distribution network & efficient serving of
loans
• Moving towards “underwrite & distribute” business model
 How exactly is all this changing the BANK CREDIT FUNCTION?
• Hold & own until mature is traditional model
• In modern banking, exposure is measured in terms of the notional value
of a loan. The expected loss (EL) for each credit facility is:

EL = PD × EAD × LGD
loss given default
probability of default
exposure at default

• EL is the basis for the calculation of institution's allowance for loan losses
• The potential for variability of credit losses beyond EL is unexpected loss
(UL)
• UL is the basis for the calculation of economic & regulatory capital using
credit portfolio models
• In traditional banking, UL is ignored
Changes in the Approach to Credit Risk Management

/Originate & hold /Underwrite & distribute

 Originate-To-Distribute/Underwrite & Distribute Model
Historically, banks used to originate loans and then keep them on their
balance until maturity. That was the originate-to-hold model. With
time, however, banks gradually and increasingly began to distribute the
loans by selling them as securities to investors. By so doing, the banks
were able to limit the growth of their balance sheet by creating a
somewhat autonomous investment vehicle to distribute the loans they
originated.

Originate to Distribute
Loans divided into:
• Core loans
• Noncore loans
 Credit Portfolio Management
Traditional credit function has given way to portfolio-based credit management. CPM
refers to set of principles, tools, processes that unpin the management of credit
portfolios. Credit risk is assessed & managed in an aggregate portfolio setting.
 CPM must work alongside traditional team in a ‘loan workout group’
 Some strategies are based on defensive actions
 Banks interested in managing earnings volatility
 Must be run on a budget to meet objectives
 Trade in credit markets to carry out strategies
 Establish ‘Chinese Wall’ that separates CPM “public side” from “private side”
 Loan Portfolio Management
In terms of broad strategy, there are 4 ways for the CP team to manage
a bank credit portfolio:
 Distribute large loans using primary syndication to retain only
desired ‘hold level’
 Reduce loan exposure by selling down or hedging concentrated loan
positions
 Focus first on high-risk obligors
 Free up bank capital by selling/hedging low risk/return loan assets

Bank can exit from loan through:

 Through negotiation
 Sell loan in the secondary loan market
 Securitization
through direct sale or transferring the credit exposure through
credit
default swaps to third party. Assets are put into securitization
vehicle given various levels of priority. These structures are
CDOs/CLOs collateralized debt/loan obligations.
 End-User applications of Credit Derivatives
Like any flexible financial instruments, credit derivatives can be put to
many purposes.
 Types of Credit Derivatives

Credit Default Swaps

Credit default swaps can be thought of as insurance against the default of
some underlying instrument or as a put option on the underlying
instrument.

Since a credit event, usually a

default, triggers the payment, this
event should be clearly defined in
the contract to avoid any litigation
when the contract is settled.
Default swaps normally contain a
“materiality clause” requiring that
the change in credit status be
validated by third-party evidence.
 BENEFITS OF USING CDS

 CDSs act to divorce funding decisions from credit risk-taking decisions. The purchase of
insurance, letters of credit, guarantees, and so on are relatively inefficient credit risk transfer
strategies, largely because they do not separate the management of credit risk from the asset
associated with the risk
 CDSs are unfunded, so it’s easy to make leveraged transactions (some collateral might be
required), though this may also increase the risk of using CDSs.
 CDSs are customizable—e.g., their maturity may differ from the term of the loan.
 CDSs improve flexibility in risk management, as banks can shed credit risk more easily than by
selling loans. There is no need to remove the loans from the balance sheet.
 CDSs are an efficient vehicle for banks to reduce risk and thereby free up capital.
 CDSs can be used to take a spread view on a credit. They offer the first mechanism by which
short sales of credit instruments can be executed with any reasonable liquidity and without the
risk of a “short squeeze.”
 Dislocations between the cash and CDS markets present new “relative value” opportunities
(e.g., trading the default swap basis).
 CDSs bring liquidity to the credit market, as they have attracted nonbank players into the
syndicated lending and credit arena.
 First-to-Default CDS
A variant of the credit default swap is the first-to-default .
A first-to-default put gives the bank the opportunity to reduce its credit risk exposure:
It will automatically be compensated if one of the loans in the pool of four loans defaults at any time during the two-
year period.
If more than one loan defaults during this period, the bank is compensated only for the first loan that defaults.
First-to-default structures are, in essence, pairwise correlation plays. The yield on such structures is primarily a function
of:
• The number of names in the basket
• The degree of correlation between the names
The first-to-default spread will lie between the spread of the worst individual credit and the sum of the spreads of all the
credits—closer to the latter if correlation is low and closer to the former if correlation is high.
 For Example
• The bank holds a portfolio of four high-yield loans rated B, each with a
nominal value of $100 million, a maturity of five years, and an annual
coupon of LIBOR plus 200 basis points (bp)see in figure.
•The first-to-default spread will lie between the spread of the worst
individual credit and the sum of the spreads of all the credits—closer to
the latter if correlation is low and closer to the former if correlation is
high.
• A generalization of the first-to-default structure is the nth-to-default credit
swap, where protection is given only to the nth facility to default as the
trigger credit event.
• In such deals, the loans are often chosen such that their default
correlations are very small—i.e., there is a very low probability at the time
the deal is struck that more than one loan will default over the time until
the expiration of the put in, say, two years.
Total Return Swaps

 Total return swaps (TRSs) mirror the return on some underlying

instrument, such as a bond, a loan, or a portfolio of bonds and/or loans.
The benefits of TRSs are similar to those of CDSs, except that for a TRS, in
contrast to a CDS, both market and credit risk are transferred from the
seller to the buyer.
 TRSs can be applied to any type of security—for example, floating-rate
notes, coupon bonds, stocks, or baskets of stocks. For most TRSs, the
maturity of the swap is much shorter than the maturity of the underlying
assets—e.g., 3 to 5 years as opposed to a maturity of 10 to 15 years.
 Asset-Backed Credit-Linked Notes
 An asset-backed credit-linked note (CLN)
embeds a default swap in a security such as
a medium-term note (MTN). Therefore, a
CLN is a debt obligation with a coupon and
redemption that are tied to the
performance of a bond or loan, or to the
performance of government debt. It is an
on-balance-sheet instrument, with
exchange of principal; there is no legal
change of ownership of the underlying
assets.
 Unlike a TRS, a CLN is a tangible asset and
may be leveraged by a multiple of 10. Since
there are no margin calls, it offers its
investors limited downside and unlimited
upside. Some CLNs can obtain a rating that
is consistent with an investment-grade
rating from agencies such as Fitch, Moody’s,
or Standard & Poor’s.
Spread Options:

 Spread options are not pure credit derivatives, but they do have credit like
features. The underlying asset of a spread option is the yield spread
between a specified corporate bond and a government bond of the same
maturity. The striking price is the forward spread at the maturity of the
option, and the payoff is the greater of zero or the difference between the
spread at maturity and the striking price, times a multiplier that is usually
the product of the duration of the underlying bond and the notional
amount.
 Investors use spread options to hedge price risk on specific bonds or bond
portfolios. As credit spreads widen, bond prices decline (and vice versa).
 Credit-Risk Securitization of Corporate Loans and High-
Yield Bonds
 Collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) and collateralized bond obligations (CBOs) are
simply securities that are collateralized by means of high-yield bank loans and
corporate bonds.
 (CLOs and CBOs are also sometimes referred to generically as collateralized debt
obligations, or CDOs.) Banks that use these instruments can free up regulatory
capital and thus leverage their intermediation business.
 A CLO (CBO) is potentially an efficient securitization structure because it allows the
cash flows from a pool of loans (or bonds) rated at below investment grade to be
pooled together and prioritized, so that some of the resulting securities can achieve
an investment-grade rating.
 The main differences between CLOs and CBOs are the assumed recovery values for,
and the average life of, the underlying assets. Rating agencies generally assume a
recovery rate of 30 to 40 percent for unsecured corporate bonds, while the rate is
around 70 percent for well-secured bank loans.
 Also, since loans amortize, they have a shorter duration and thus present a lower risk
than their high-yield bond counterparts.
 Typical Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) Structure
.
 A special purpose vehicle (SPV) or trust
is set up, which issues, say, three types
of securities: senior secured class A
notes, senior secured class B notes, and
subordinated notes or an “equity
tranche.”
 The proceeds are used to buy high-yield
notes that constitute the collateral.
 In practice, the asset pool for a CLO
may also contain a small percentage of
high-yield bonds (usually less than 10
percent). The reverse is true for CBOs:
they may include up to 10 percent of
high-yield loans.
 The gap in maturities between the
loans and the CLO structure requires
active management of the loan
portfolio
 Synthetic CDOs
 In a traditional CDO, also called a “cash-CDO,” the credit assets are fully cash funded
using the proceeds of the debt and equity issued by the SPV; the repayment of
obligations is tied directly to the cash flows arising from the assets. of a CLO, one of
the main types of CDO.
 A synthetic CDO, by contrast, transfers risk without affecting the legal ownership of
the credit assets. This is accomplished through a series of CDSs.
 In the example the right-hand side is equivalent to the cash CDO structure
presented except that it applies to only 10 percent of the pool of reference assets.
The left-hand side shows the credit protection in the form of a “super senior swap”
provided by a highly rated institution (a role that used to be performed by
monoline insurance companies before the subprime crisis).
 The SPV typically provides credit protection for 10 percent or less of the losses on
the reference portfolio. The SPV, in turn, issues notes in the capital markets to cash
collateralize the portfolio default swap with the originating entity. The notes issued
can include a nonrated equity piece, mezzanine debt, and senior debt, creating
cash liabilities.

Single-Tranche CDOs

 The terms of a single-tranche CDO are similar to those of a tranche of a

traditional CDO. However, in a traditional CDO, the entire portfolio may be
ramped up, and the entire capital structure may be distributed to multiple
investors.
 In a single-tranche CDO, only a particular tranche, tailored to the client’s needs, is
issued, and there is no need to build the actual portfolio, as the bank will hedge its
exposure by buying or selling the underlying reference assets according to hedge
ratios produced by its proprietary pricing model.

Credit Derivatives on Credit Indices

 Credit trading based on indices (“index trades”) had become popular before the
crisis and is still active, although there is less activity for index tranches. The
indices are based on a large number of underlying credits, and portfolio managers
can therefore use index trades to hedge the credit risk exposure of a diversified
portfolio. Index trades are also popular with holders of CDO tranches and CLNs
who need to hedge their credit risk exposure.
 The two major families of credit indices are CDX for North America and emerging
markets and iTraxx for Europe and Asia. CDX indices are a family of indices
covering multiple sectors.
 CONCLUSION:
• Credit derivatives and securitization are key tools for the transfer and
management of credit risk and for the provision of bank funding.
• It is a key tool of dynamic portfolio management, and one that is growing in
importance in the global banking industry.
• Credit derivates can also be used to express a view on credit risks.
• On supply side, banks benefit by being able to hedge their credit risk exposure
and, more importantly, by being able to break the linkage between the client
relationship and lending.
• On buy side, investors are able to obtain credit products that are structured
closely to their specific needs.
• The development of the CDS and CDO markets will facilitate a more efficient
allocation of credit risk in the economy and reduce systemic risk during
economic recession.
• Currently, one of the main reason of using new credit instruement is
regulatory arbitrage.
• Risks assumed by means of credit derivatives are largely unfunded and
undisclosed, which could allow players to become leveraged in a way that
is difficult for outsiders (or even senior management) to spot.
• So far, we’ve yet to see a major financial disaster caused by the
complexities of credit derivatives and the new opportunities they bring for
both transferring and assuming credit risk.
• But such a disaster will surely come, particularly if the boards and senior
managers of banks do not invest the time to understand exactly how these
new markets and instruments work—and how each major transaction
affects their institution’s risk profile.
END OF CHAPTER
~Thank You~