Senior Loans

Senior loans are non-investment grade floating rate debt instruments that generally offer attractive yields, are typically secured by borrower assets and can provide a natural hedge against rising interest rates. Senior loans’ first priority in the corporate capital structure is why they are called “senior loans”.

Objective

Our objective is to provide superior long-term risk-adjusted total returns with low volatility over a full market cycle.

To that end, we believe:

• Properly diversified senior loan portfolios can provide high risk adjusted total returns.
• Credit risk is the primary risk facing senior loan portfolio managers; price volatility and market liquidity can also be challenging.
• Consistency in decision-making is a critical success factor; style drift should be avoided.

Given these beliefs, ING’s senior loan management team focuses on creating portfolios of broadly diversified, highly liquid, non-investment grade, senior secured loans.

We invest in loans that in our opinion represent the highest relative value within the asset class.

Senior loan strategies may be employed with or without leverage.