PE Interest in US Lower Middle Market Slumps Temporarily After trending upward for over a year, private equity dealmaking in the US lower middle market (defined as transactions sized between $25 million and $100 million) fell sharply between 1Q and 2Q 2016. Granted, there were fluctuations in the upward trend, but 1Q recorded not only…
Distressed Private Equity Excels in PrEQIn Performance Index The PrEQIn Index captures the returns earned by investors, on average, in their private equity portfolios, based on the actual amount of money invested and rebased to a chosen point in time. This makes comparisons possible between different strategies and also with the S&P 500…. Subscribe to
Last week’s failed Turkish coup, and the resulting crackdown, has spooked holders of Turkey’s dollar denominated government bonds. Gauged by Turkey’s CDS spread, the market’s perceptions of the country’s credit risk has jumped by more than a quarter from its close on Thursday. Turkey’s spreads hit 290bps on July 21, the widest level since February….
The spectacular turnaround in sentiment in the leveraged market resulted in a 137% jump in refinancing activity in the second quarter, reaching US$112bn, up from US$47bn in the first quarter and the highest since 2Q15’s US$165bn. With cash build-up from repayments, investors who had been sitting on the sidelines in the early part of the…
US PE sellers slowly reducing inventory of aging portfolio companies After climbing steadily for several years, the median hold period in the US by private equity firms roughly leveled off between 2013 and 2014. From there, the hold period for companies exited via IPO briefly leapt upward in 2015, only to plunge once more in…
Private Debt sees Imbalanced Fundraising Landscape As of the start of Q3 2016, there were 247 private debt funds in market, targeting an aggregate $141bn in capital commitments. However, the landscape currently shows an imbalanced ratio in terms of the debt types which have the most funds on the road, compared to the corresponding proportion…
In the heady days of 2004-2007, before the Great Moderation came to a shuddering halt, it seemed set in stone that European investment grade CDS traded tighter than their North American counterparts. In May 2007, the Markit iTraxx Europe was trading at 20bps and the Markit CDX.NA.IG was quoted 15bps wider at 35bps. This 15bps…
U.S. CLO assets under management (AUM) climbed to $434 billion in June on the back of further new deal flow. Issuance increased to $6.6 billion (15 deals) in June from $5.4 billion (13 deals) in May. This brought first half 2016 issuance to $26.2 billion (62 deals), which is down sharply from $60.4 billion (115…
IT Remains a Favorite of PE Firms As private equity activity in the U.S. has slackened, nearly every sector has experienced a decline in overall volume of investments, barring one. Only the information technology sector is seeing a rate of PE dealmaking comparable to that of last year, with 261 closed transactions through the end…
Private Debt Industry Achieves Greater Fundraising Success in H1 2016 Although private debt fundraising in Q2 2016 has not matched the record levels seen in recent quarters, H1 2016 as a whole has seen a record proportion of funds exceed their initial target size. The period has also seen a diminishing number of funds fail…