Lead Left Interview – M. Grier Eliasek (Part Two)

This week we continue our conversation with  M. Grier Eliasek, President and Chief Operating Officer of Prospect Capital Management. Prospect is a $7+ billion AUM leading provider of flexible private debt and equity capital to sponsor and non-sponsor owned middle market companies.

Second of two parts – View part one

The Lead Left: How much do CLOs represent? What are you seeing happening with spreads?

Grier Eliasek: Of our over $7 billion in total AUM, CLOs represents about $1.2 billion. Our BDC is a yield animal. We get lots of repeat business on the sponsor side. But you can’t be 200 bps wide of the market. Spreads have continued to decline, with such trend more acute on the smaller end of the middle market.

TLL: Interesting. I would have thought more on the larger end. How active are things right now?

GE: More lenders can hold smaller deals, increasing spread compression at smaller deal sizes. And larger companies are