The start of the market

CDO guide: introduction

Clare Island, Galway Bay, Copernicus, Concerto, Thunderbird. The names are more likely to conjure up images of the racecard on Grand National Day than of a menu of financial products. These, and hundreds of other equally colourfully named instruments, are examples of collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), which in recent years have been among the fastest-developing investment vehicles in the financial services industry. As the rating agency Moody’s noted in its Review of activity in the