Arbitrage Synthetic CDO

From Open Risk Manual

Definition

Arbitrage Synthetic CDO. Arbitrage synthetic CDO deals are motivated by regulatory or practical considerations that might make a bank want to retain ownership of debt while achieving capital relief through CDSs. In this case, the sponsoring bank has a portfolio of obligations, called the reference portfolio. It retains that portfolio, but offloads its credit risk by transacting CDSs with the CDO.

For arbitrage synthetic deals, two advantages are - an abbreviated ramp-up period (for managed deals), and - the possibility that selling protection through CDSs can be less expensive than directly buying the underlying bonds. This is often true at the lower end of the credit spectrum.

Disclaimer

This entry annotates a FIBO Ontology Class. FIBO is a trademark and the FIBO Ontology is copyright of the EDM Council, released under the MIT Open Source License. There is no guarantee that the content of this page will remain aligned with, or correctly interprets, the concepts covered by the FIBO ontology.