Constant Proportion Debt Obligation

A Constant Proportion Debt Obligation (or CPDO) is a type of credit derivative sold to investors looking for long term exposure to credit risk on a highly rated note. They employ dynamic leveraging in a similar (but opposite) way to Credit CPPI trades.

CPDOs formed, first by creating a SPV which will issue some debt. The SPV will be backed by an investment in an index of debt securities (commonly credit default swap indices such as CDX and iTraxx. In theory this could be deal-specific, such as a bespoke index of sovereign debt) similar to a CDO. The investment index is periodically rolled, whereby the SPV must buy protection on the old index, and sell protection on the new index. In doing so, it incurs rollover risk, in that the leaving index may by priced much wider than the new index. The structure then allows for continual adjustment of leverage such that the asset and liability spreads stay matched. In general this involves increasing leverage as when losses are taken, similar to a doubling strategy, in which one doubles one's bet at each coin toss until a win occurs.