Compounding in Arrears with Syndicated Loan Accruals - IHS Markit

[Pages:7]Compounding in Arrears with Syndicated Loan Accruals

Analysis of Interest Payment & Trading Issues / Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Copyright ? 2020 IHS Markit Ltd

Trading with Balance Transfer

Borrowers

3

Compounding in Arrears Interest Calculation

3

Agents

4

Simple vs. Compound Interest

4

Lenders

5

Secondary Trading

5

Balance Transfer

6

Notes

7

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Trading with Balance Transfer

Borrowers

Compounding in Arrears Interest Calculation

From the Borrower's perspective, interest will begin accruing on a compound basis following each interest payment. The calculation is based on the full notional amount of the loan with a risk-free rate (SOFR, SONIA, etc.) and corresponding year count. As with simple interest loans, secondary trading amongst lenders throughout the period will have no effect on the borrower's interest payment amount for the period.

Earned Interest = Notional Amount (Compounded) x SOFR x (Day Count / Year Count) Initial Commitment = $10,000,000.00, Start Date = 9/30/2019, End Date = 10/31/2019 Interest Method = Compounding in Arrears

- Other inputs are not necessary for demonstrating this issue: Spread, Adjustment, Lookback, etc. Earned Interest due for the Borrower = $16,187.27

Year Count = 360 (SOFR)

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Trading with Balance Transfer

Agents

Simple vs. Compound Interest

With traditional simple interest loans, agents can track lenders' positions throughout the period and easily calculate interest due based on each lender's holding period. However, complications arise with the compound interest calculation when a lenders position's change within the period. While the interest payment being calculated for the Borrower starts compounding on day one, a lender buying in during the period would reasonably expect their interest to begin accruing on the Settle Date of their Buy trade. Continuing with the prior example, the total amount of interest paid by the borrower will equal the amount accrued by all lenders if the Agent accrues the lenders interest on a daily pro-rata basis according to their owned percentage throughout the period.

$4,000,000 was sold from Lender 1 to Lender 2 on 10/10/2019

The agent accruing the lenders' interest on a daily pro-rata basis will match up with the borrower's amount of interest paid, but this secondary trading brings up another issue with which the lenders will need to contend.

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Trading with Balance Transfer

Lenders

Secondary Trading

With compounding in arrears, using the traditional method of beginning accruals on a Lender's buy trade settle date will create a net underpayment of funds to the group of lenders. The discrepancy stems from the fact that Lender 1 has not only been accruing interest on the trade amount since day one, but also the interest-on-interest that compounding brings about. It is this second piece that potentially causes small amounts of interest to essentially "disappear" when the loan is traded to a new lender. While not common, most lenders are familiar with the idea of including accrued interest on trades. When an agent simply accrued interest for the lender of record as of the interest payment date (as shown in the previous section) any discrepancies with a lender's individual accruals could be reconciled by including accrued interest on the secondary trades occurring within an interest period. Compound interest does not work with this same model and other considerations will need to be made for both buyers and sellers to be compensated fairly. In the previous example Lender 2 would ordinarily expect to begin their accrual calculations on the day they entered the deal, aka the buy trade's settle date. However, based on the agent's calculations they will receive the benefit of this prior compounding when buying in mid-period.

For Lender 2's $4,000,000 trade midway through the period there is a total discrepancy of $2.30. This additional benefit to buyer (Lender 2) increases with the principal amount purchased and the closer the settlement date is to the interest payment date.

Total Interest for Lender 2 - Agent Payment = $4,373.33 - Lender 2's Expected Payment = $4,371.03 (both calculated above)

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Trading with Balance Transfer

Balance Transfer

In order to reconcile the individual lender's accruals with agents and ultimately the borrower's amount of interest paid using compounding in arrears, the additional interest on the compounded notional balance must be assumed by the buyer. Returning to Lender 2's buy trade settling on 10/10/2019, when the Earned Interest Balance is transferred to the buyer by adding the compounding effect to the beginning Notional Amount (Compounded) ? orange highlights below ? then at a position level we accrue the exact same amount of interest as the agent and borrower are expecting to pay.

Step 1: The amount to be transferred is calculated using the buy trade's notional amount for the period beginning with the current global contract up to the trade's settle date.

- Lender 2: 9/30/2019 ? 10/09/2019 @ $4,000,000 Step 2: Add the Earned Interest Balance from Step 1 to the beginning Notional Amount

(Compounded) as the trade's settle date. - No further changes to compounding interest calculations going forward

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Trading with Balance Transfer

Notes

? This is only applicable to Buy trades settled after the contract's start date. There is no impact to the Seller of the trade, no cash sent to the Buyer, and no need for the Seller to track the amount of earned interest balance to be transferred.

? This is only applicable to compounding interest earned on the base rate. Balance Transfer is not an issue with simple interest earned on the spread or spread adjustment, nor does this apply to Simple in Arrears calculations where existing pro-rata interest calculations can be used.

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