This article appears courtesy of International Securities Finance magazine
Convertible bonds last year were faced with no choice but to deleverage their portfolios with the ban of short selling, and the seizing up of the credit markets cutting off their supply of debt finance, whilst losses in other parts of their businesses meant they had to reduce the size of their positions. The nationalisation of the two US mortgage providers, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers were particularly significant as they were significant issuers and holders of convertible preferred shares. The effective destruction of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac convertibles together with the losses stemming from Lehman securities was a catalyst for a melt-down in the convertibles marketplace as a whole.
Before the deleveraging started in the summer of 2008, convertible arbitrage had been seen as a reliable and very profitable means of making money on a market neutral basis according to Nick Paris, managing director of Purbeck Advisers. Indeed, estimates are that the sector had generated cumulative returns of over 100% between January 2000 and January 2008. But the majority of those returns were wiped out in the second half of 2008.