Collateralized debt obligations

A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed for the corporate debt markets, over time CDOs evolved to encompass the mortgage and mortgage-backed security ("MBS") markets.

Like other private label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the cash flow the CDO collects from the pool of bonds or other assets it owns. The CDO is "sliced" into "tranches", which "catch" the cash flow of interest and principal payments in sequence based on seniority. If some loans default and the cash collected by the CDO is insufficient to pay all of its investors, those in the lowest, most "junior" tranches suffer losses first. The last to lose payment from default are the safest, most senior tranches. Consequently, coupon payments (and interest rates) vary by tranche with the safest/most senior tranches receiving the lowest rates and the lowest tranches receiving the highest rates to compensate for higher default risk. As an example, a CDO might issue the following tranches in order of safeness: Senior AAA (sometimes known as "super senior"); Junior AAA; AA; A; BBB; Residual.

Separate special purpose entities—rather than the parent investment bank—issue the CDOs and pay interest to investors. As CDOs developed, some sponsors repackaged tranches into yet another iteration, known as "CDO-squared", "CDOs of CDOs" or "synthetic CDOs".

In the early 2000s, CDOs were generally diversified, but by 2006–2007—when the CDO market grew to hundreds of billions of dollars—this changed. CDO collateral became dominated not by loans, but by lower level (BBB or A) tranches recycled from other asset-backed securities, whose assets were usually sub-prime mortgages, and are known as a synthetic CDO. These CDOs have been called "the engine that powered the mortgage supply chain" for sub-prime mortgages, and are credited with giving lenders greater incentive to make sub-prime loans leading up to the 2007-9 subprime mortgage crisis.

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