“With a light LBO calendar, capital markets desks on the Street are looking for seasoned leveraged credits to pitch dividend deals to,” Douglas Antonacci, a New York-based managing director and co-head of loan sales at Bank of America Corp., said in a telephone interview. The bank is the biggest underwriter of leveraged loans in the U.S.

Elsewhere in credit markets, HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc sold the first yuan-denominated bonds in Singapore, making the city state the third offshore hub for notes in the Chinese currency.

HSBC priced 500 million yuan ($81.7 million) of two-year notes through its Singapore branch at 2.25 percent, according to an e-mailed statement from Europe’s biggest bank. Standard Chartered, which generates most of its operating profit in Asia, sold 1 billion yuan of 2.625 percent three-year notes, according to a separate e-mailed statement from the lender. The notes priced to yield 2.75 percent, a person familiar with the matter said.

Issuance Bolstered

Markets were closed in the U.S. and U.K. yesterday for public holidays. In the Asia-Pacific region, the Markit iTraxx Asia index of credit-default swaps linked to 40 investment-grade borrowers outside Japan fell one basis point to 109. The measure had advanced in the past four trading days to finish at its highest since April 26, according to data provider CMA.

The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of swaps linked to 125 investment-grade companies dropped 3.5 basis points to 93.47 at 9:45 a.m. in London.

About $293.2 billion of loans have been made this year, compared with $465.7 billion in all of 2012, according to S&P’s Capital IQ LCD. Issuance has been bolstered by growth in collateralized loan obligations and inflows into mutual funds that buy the debt.

More than $36 billion of CLOs have been raised this year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The bank is forecasting managers will create about $70 billion of CLOs this year, compared with $55 billion in 2012, the biggest year since the market collapsed during the financial crisis.

Leveraged loans and high-yield, high-risk bonds are rated below Baa3 by Moody’s and lower than BBB- at S&P.

‘Optimal Time’