glossary · what it means in a filing
also called first lien · second lien · seniority
A unitranche loan merges what would otherwise be senior and junior debt into a single facility at a single blended rate, leaving one instrument where a syndicated structure would have two.
Seniority is one of the three fields that must agree before two filings are treated as the same tranche — with the borrower and the spread to the basis point. A first lien position and a second lien position in the same borrower are different loans, and matching them would manufacture a gap that does not exist.
Seniority is a matching key, never a published cut: publishing a dispersion figure by seniority would let a reader locate their own book inside the free index, which is the work the subscription pays for.