TheLeadLeft

Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis - 6/15/2015

Loan mutual fund & ETF assets under management edged higher to just over $139 billion in May as these funds registered a second consecutive month of inflows as expectations around higher interest rates once again came to the fore. Despite the combined inflows of $646 million in April and May,… Login to Read More...

Markit Recap – 6/8/2015

Macro themes continue to dominate fixed income markets, but investors shouldn’t lose sight of the idiosyncratic stories that are unfolding in the background. New Look, a British high street retailer, saw its spreads tighten dramatically this week after it announced a refinancing that should improve its credit profile. The company was bought… Login to Read

Payback Time

One bedrock tenet of sound lending practices is establishing the borrower’s capacity to repay its debt over the contractual life of the obligation. So it’s not surprising that regulators have taken banks to task in recent reports highlighting a growing number of leveraged loan issuers which lack that capacity. Specifically, in its 2014 Leveraged Loan…

Chart of the Week - Two Way Street

Expectations in recent months of higher rates have caused volatility in options markets to diverge between equities and bond yields. Sources: Citi, Bloomberg, IIF via The Daily Shot

Lead Left Interview - Brett Hickey (Part 2)

This week we continue our conversation with Brett Hickey, chief executive officer, Star Mountain Capital. Based in New York with regional offices and a network covering over 25 U.S. cities, Star Mountain provides strategic partner capital for private equity, mezzanine and other private capital funds as well as growth debt and equity financing for small…

The Pulse of Private Equity - 6/8/2015

Not all recoveries are created equal Top-line numbers never tell the whole story in PE. That’s especially the case in Europe, where overall middle-market numbers show a pronounced boom in activity between 2009 and 2014. Since bottoming out, deal flow almost tripled… Login to Read More...

Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis - 6/8/2015

Yields on institutional term loans have tightened in 2Q15. The average yield assuming a three-year term to repayment on first-lien institutional loans is at 5.01 percent so far in 2Q15, down from 5.71 percent in 1Q15, and down over 100bp from 4Q14’s level…. Login to Read More...