In U.S., before the financial crisis in 2007–2008, CLOs had become the dominant form of institutional investment in the leveraged loan market taking a commanding 60% of primary activity by institutional investors by 2007. But when the structured finance market cratered in late 2007, CLO issuance tumbled and by mid-2008, the CLO share had fallen to 40%. In 2014 CLO issuance has demonstrated a full recovery with issuance of $90 billion by August, an amount that effectively equals the previous record set in 2007. Projections on total issuance for 2014 are as high as $125 billion. In Europe, over the past few years, other vehicles such as credit funds have begun to appear on the market. Credit funds are open-ended pools of debt investments. Unlike CLOs, however, they are not subject to ratings oversight or restrictions regarding industry or ratings diversification. They are generally lightly levered (two or three times), allow managers significant freedom in picking and choosing investments, and are subject to being marked to market. In addition, in Europe, mezzanine funds play a significant role in the loan market. Mezzanine funds are also investment pools, which traditionally focused on the mezzanine market only. However, when second lien entered the market, it eroded the mezzanine market; consequently, mezzanine funds expanded their investment universe and began to commit to second lien as well as payment-in-kind (PIK) portions of transaction. As with credit funds, these pools are not subject to ratings oversight or diversification requirements, and allow managers significant freedom in picking and choosing investments. Mezzanine funds are, however, riskier than credit funds in that they carry both debt and equity characteristics. Retail investors can access the loan market through prime funds. Prime funds were first introduced in the late 1980s. Most of the original prime funds were continuously offered funds with quarterly tender periods. Managers then rolled true closed-end, exchange-traded funds in the early 1990s. It was not until the early 2000s that fund complexes introduced open-ended funds that were redeemable each day. While quarterly redemption funds and closed-end funds remained the standard because the secondary loan market does not offer the rich liquidity that is supportive of open-end funds, the open-end funds had sufficiently raised their profile that by mid-2008 they accounted for 15-20% of the loan assets held by mutual funds. As the ranks of institutional investors have grown over the years, the loan markets have changed to