OREANDA-NEWS. S&P Global Ratings today affirmed its credit ratings on BlueMountain EUR CLO 2016-1 DAC's class A1, A2, B1, B2, C, D, E, and F notes following the transaction's effective date as of Aug. 5, 2016 (see list below).

Most European cash flow collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) close before purchasing the full amount of their targeted level of portfolio collateral. On the closing date, the collateral manager typically covenants to purchase the remaining collateral within the guidelines specified in the transaction documents to reach the target level of portfolio collateral.

Typically, the CLO transaction documents specify a date by which the targeted level of portfolio collateral must be reached. The "effective date" for a CLO transaction is usually the earlier of the date on which the transaction acquires the target level of portfolio collateral, or the date defined in the transaction documents. Most transaction documents contain provisions directing the trustee to request the rating agencies that have issued ratings upon closing to affirm the ratings issued on the closing date after reviewing the effective date portfolio (typically referred to as an "effective date rating affirmation").

An effective date rating affirmation reflects our opinion that the portfolio collateral purchased by the issuer, as reported to us by the trustee and collateral manager, in combination with the transaction's structure, provides sufficient credit support to maintain the ratings that we assigned on the transaction's closing date. The effective date reports provide a summary of certain information that we used in our analysis and the results of our review based on the information presented to us.

We believe the transaction may see some benefit from allowing a window of time after the closing date for the collateral manager to acquire the remaining assets for a CLO transaction. This window of time is typically referred to as a "ramp-up period." Because some CLO transactions may acquire most of their assets from the new issue leveraged loan market, the ramp-up period may give collateral managers the flexibility to acquire a more diverse portfolio of assets.

For a CLO that has not purchased its full target level of portfolio collateral by the closing date, our ratings on the closing date and prior to our effective date review are generally based on the application of our criteria to a combination of purchased collateral, collateral committed to be purchased, and the indicative portfolio of assets provided to us by the collateral manager, and may also reflect our assumptions about the transaction's investment guidelines. This is because not all assets in the portfolio have been purchased.

When we receive a request to issue an effective date rating affirmation, we perform quantitative and qualitative analysis of the transaction in accordance with our criteria to assess whether the initial ratings remain consistent with the credit enhancement based on the effective date collateral portfolio. Our analysis relies on the use of CDO Evaluator to estimate a scenario default rate at each rating level based on the effective date portfolio, full cash flow modeling to determine the appropriate percentile break-even default rate at each rating level, the application of our supplemental tests, and the analytical judgment of a rating committee. (For more information on our criteria and our analytical tools, see "Global Methodologies And Assumptions For Corporate Cash Flow And Synthetic CDOs," published on Aug. 8, 2016.)

In our published effective date report, we discuss our analysis of the information provided by the transaction's trustee and collateral manager in support of their request for effective date rating affirmation. In most instances, we intend to publish an effective date report each time we issue an effective date rating affirmation on a publicly rated European cash flow CLO.

On an ongoing basis after we issue an effective date rating affirmation, we will periodically review whether, in our view, the current ratings on the notes remain consistent with the credit quality of the assets, the credit enhancement available to support the notes, and other factors, and take rating actions as we deem necessary.