Palmer Square, a $37 Billion CLO Manager, Reportedly Explores Sale

Palmer Square Capital Management, a credit firm with $37 billion in assets under management, is exploring a sale of the business, according to a Bloomberg report citing people with knowledge of the matter. The Kansas-based asset manager is a significant player in the market for collateralized loan obligations (CLOs).

Sale Process Underway

According to the report, Palmer Square has engaged bankers to manage the process. The firm has reportedly been fielding offers from potential acquirers and is in the process of narrowing down the list of bidders.

Palmer Square is led by the husband-and-wife team of Chris Long, who serves as Chairman and CEO, and Angie Long, the firm's Chief Investment Officer. Chris Long founded the firm following the 2008 financial crisis, initially capitalizing it with approximately $10 million of his own funds to invest in credit-market dislocations.

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CLO Platform is Key Asset

The firm's primary attraction for potential buyers is its substantial CLO platform. This business accounts for about $27 billion of Palmer Square's total assets under management, according to data from S&P Global.

The potential sale comes amid a period of explosive growth for the CLO market, which packages and sells leveraged loans to investors. The U.S. CLO market has quadrupled in size over the past 15 years, now exceeding $1.3 trillion. This expansion has made established CLO managers like Palmer Square attractive acquisition targets. The firm's other strategies include opportunistic credit, private credit, and a publicly traded business development company (BDC).