????摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）“倫敦鯨”曾供職的首席投資辦公室正在重返高風險業(yè)務水域。

????據(jù)幾位熟悉相關交易的人士稱，摩根大通設在倫敦的首席投資辦公室正在敲定收購大筆貸款抵押證券（CLO）的交易。CLO是結構化債券，由提供給評級低于投資級公司的貸款池支持。去年，摩根大通首席投資辦公室因信用衍生品交易而虧損超過60億美元。

????德克特律師事務所（Dechert）專攻CLO業(yè)務的律師約翰?蒂姆帕瑞阿說，他目前正在為兩筆交易提供法律顧問服務，摩根大通有望成為主要買家。其中一筆CLO涉及向中型公司提供的貸款，所涉及風險更高，但收益率也更高。在另一筆CLO交易中，摩根大通打算將幾乎所有評級最高的一部分收入囊中。 蒂姆帕瑞阿說：“交易規(guī)模相當大，摩根大通已經(jīng)重新進入這個市場。”

????CLO并不屬于在一定程度上導致此前美國住房抵押貸款市場崩盤的衍生金融產品，后者是曼哈頓下城正在對高盛（Goldman Sachs）前銀行家法布里斯?圖爾進行審判的案件的核心。那些衍生金融產品是債權抵押證券（CDO），是由次級住房抵押貸款支持的。不過，它們和CLO非常相似。

????銀行發(fā)放貸款（通常面向信用評級為BBB或更低的公司），然后將它們賣給CLO管理公司。CLO管理公司在銀行的協(xié)助下將這些貸款打包成債券，根據(jù)風險水平分級出售。盡管初始貸款的評級較低，通過資產證券化的魔力，典型CLO約60%的債券可以獲得最高的AAA評級。

????2008年年中，CLO的發(fā)行量和其他結構性融資交易一樣出現(xiàn)枯竭。但與金融危機期間簽訂的高風險抵押貸款交易不同的是，最近CLO強勢卷土重來。湯森路透（Thomson Reuters）的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，今年上半年各大銀行共承銷了近440億美元的杠桿貸款交易，高于2011年上半年的170億美元和2010年上半年的110億美元。由于利率上升，CLO市場在過去一個月有所放緩，但今年仍然有望達到2007年市場見頂時的水平（920億美元的CLO發(fā)行量）。

????CLO重新崛起最令人驚訝的一面也許是：高風險銀行貸款支持的CLO的最大買家是銀行本身。摩根大通持有的CLO資產比任何對手都要多。過去的兩年中，這家銀行持有的CLO資產幾乎增加了一倍，達到了270億美元（截至第一季度末，這是它最近一次披露CLO頭寸的時間）。根據(jù)它提交給監(jiān)管部門的文件，這些CLO由摩根大通的首席投資辦公室購買。有“倫敦鯨”之稱的布魯諾?伊克西爾曾在這個部門就職。三位知情人士證實，摩根大通通過設在倫敦的首席投資辦公室管理手頭的CLO組合。摩根大通旗下首席投資辦公室負責該行超額儲備的投資，目前由克雷格?德拉尼主管。此前長期擔任首席投資辦公室主管的伊娜?德魯在數(shù)十億美元虧損曝光后不久離職。出現(xiàn)這筆巨額虧損后，摩根大通一度放緩了CLO資產的收購。但現(xiàn)在看來，這家銀行正在再次加大收購力度。

????富國銀行（Wells Fargo）也是一個大買家。截至三月底，富國銀行持有150億美元的CLO，高于上年同期的80億美元。截至第一季度末，花旗集團（Citigroup）持有約45億美元的CLO，高于上年同期的30億美元。相比之下，美國銀行（Bank of America）已經(jīng)基本決定退出CLO投資市場。第一季度末，美國銀行持有的CLO僅略高于7億美元。

????former office of JPMorgan Chase's London Whale is diving back into risk.

????According to several people familiar with the deals, JPMorgan's London chief investment office, which last year lost more than $6 billion betting on credit derivatives, is in the process of inking deals to buy significant portions of collateralized loan obligations, which are structured bonds that are backed by groups of loans to below investment-grade companies.

????John Timperio, a lawyer at Dechert who specializes in CLOs, says he is working on two deals right now in which JPMorgan (JPM) is expected to be the main buyer. One is for loans to mid-sized companies, which carry more risk, but higher yields. In another deal, JPMorgan is planning to buy nearly all of the highest-rated piece of the CLO. "It's a fairly large deal," says Timperio. "JPMorgan is back in this market."

????CLOs are not the derivatives that are in part credited with blowing up the mortgage market and are at the heart of a trial going on in lower Manhattan against former Goldman Sachs (GS) banker Fabrice Tourre. Those are collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, which were backed by subprime home loans. But CLOs are close cousins.

????Banks make the loans, typically to companies with credit ratings of BBB or lower, and then sell them off to a CLO manager, who, with the help of a bank, packages up those loans into bonds that are sold off in slices based on risk. Despite the lower rating of the original loans, through the magic of securitization, about 60% of the bonds of a typical CLO get an AAA rating, which is the highest.

????Issuance of CLOs dried up in mid-2008 along with other structured finance deals. But unlike the risky mortgage deals that were inked during the financial crisis, CLOs have recently made a big comeback. Banks underwrote nearly $44 billion of the leveraged loan deals in the first half of the year, according to Thomson Reuters. That's up from $17 billion in the first half of 2011, and $11 billion in the year before that. The CLO market has slowed a little bit in the past month as interest rates have risen, but it's still on pace to nearly match the $92 billion in CLOs that were issued in 2007 when the market peaked.

????Perhaps the most surprising thing about the CLO revival is this: The entities that have emerged as the biggest buyers of the packages of risky bank loans are the banks themselves. JPMorgan holds more CLOs than any of its rivals. In the past two years, the bank has nearly doubled its holdings of CLOs to $27 billion, as of the end of the first quarter, which was the last time it disclosed its holdings. According to its filings, the CLOs were purchased by JPMorgan's chief investment office, which is the unit where Bruno Iksil, who was nicknamed the London Whale, worked. Three people confirmed that JPMorgan manages its CLO portfolio out of its London office. JPMorgan's CIO unit, which invests the bank's excess reserves, is now headed by Craig Delany, who took over for long-time CIO chief Ina Drew, who left shortly after the bank's multi-billion losses were revealed. JPMorgan slowed its CLO purchases in the wake of those losses. But it appears the bank is in the process of ramping up their purchases again.

????Wells Fargo (WFC) has been a buyer as well. It had $15 billion in CLOs at the end of March, up from $8 billion the year before. Citigroup (C) had about $4.5 billion in CLOs at the end of the first quarter, up from $3 billion the year before. Bank of America (BAC), in contrast, has largely decided to stay out of the CLO investment market. At the end of the first quarter, BofA held just over $700 million in CLOs.