Citi, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Moody’s Analytics have launched an open market electronic trading platform.
The platform is for syndicated loans and collateralised loan obligations (CLOs), launching with the former originally with plans to add CLOs and credit products later down the line. It will offer straight through processing (STP) for trade booking and data and analytics provided by Moody’s.
Octaura was originally cooked up by Bank of America and Citi inspired by the pair’s eBidding platform and Instinct Loan Match Platform.
“Octaura was ideated, incubated, and executed through active collaboration with Citi’s traders to effectively build a solution that addresses the myriad challenges endemic to current market structures,” said Mickey Bhatia, head of global spread products at Citi.
Brian Bejile – formerly at Citi for almost two decades including as its global head of CLO issuer management – has been appointed as chief executive officer of the new entity.
The launch comes at a time of ongoing growth in the CLO and syndicated loans market, the institutions said, doubling in the last 10 years to $1 trillion and $1.4 trillion in outstanding notionals.
“With the launch of Octaura, we are proud to be moving our industry in a direction that will bring greater liquidity, efficiency and ultimately attract a broader investor base to the syndicated loan and structured credit markets,” said Brian Carosielli, co-head of global credit trading at Bank of America.