Supported by solid technicals and a steady – if uninspired – pipeline of deals, the US loan market got a substantial boost in 2Q16 to push over US$550 billion in loan volume through the market and logging nearly US$905 billion of total issuance during the first six months of the year. Coming off a slow…
Recent Wave of Exits Differentiated U.S. PE Fund Managers The boom in private equity-backed selling observed over the past few years, cresting in 2015, yielded rich returns for certain U.S. buyout funds. More than that, it proved a differentiating area for the top tier of U.S. fund managers. As illustrated by the chart above, certain…
Credit Hedge Fund Performance in 2016 YTD The first months of 2016 were characterised by continued market volatility, and credit-focused hedge funds recorded losses across all sub-strategies in January and February. However, as global turbulence has calmed moving into Q2, all sub-strategies have seen improved performing and posted three consecutive months of gains… Subscribe to
The campaign for the UK to leave the European Union has lost momentum with in the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, and the credit market has been re-pricing to reflect these developments. The UK’s five year CDS spreads, which had touched yearly wides off the back of the surging “leave” sentiment last week, have been the…
Survey: Where are we in the credit cycle? Thirty-nine percent of buyside and sellside institutions in the room at Fitch Ratings and Thomson Reuters LPC’s Loan & CLO Conference last Thursday felt that we are already headed into a correction and in the late stages of the credit cycle, up from just 4% in both…
Closing times indicate divergence in company quality In the first quarter of 2016, most private equity transactions still took between 10 and 14 weeks to close, accounting for 31% of deals completed during that timeframe. However, as illustrated above, the portion of deals that closed in 15 to 20 weeks shot up to near 25%…
Private Debt Dry Powder: Regional Contrasts The amount of capital available to private debt fund managers varies hugely in different parts of the world. In H1 2016, managers focusing on North America and Asia have both seen dry powder reach record levels, while Europe-focused… Subscribe to Read MoreAlready a member? Log in here...
Falling government bond yields across Europe have meant investors have been rewarded with impressive returns so far this year. One country however, continues to lag. Portugal has seen its credit risk hover at elevated levels and its government bonds have produced negative returns this year. Credit investors have been treating Portugal with increasing scepticism since…
Secondary market oil and gas loan prices have continued to climb recently in tandem with higher oil prices. Oil and gas loans are now up over 16 points from their February low, though their average bid is still a relatively low 70 cents on the dollar. There is also a wide variation in prices across…
Core-middle-market buyout multiples slide in Q1 2016 Between the end of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, median buyout multiples for the central middle market slid considerably. Calculating multiples by enterprise value over EBITDA, and then breaking them down by enterprise values from $25 million to $250 million, reveals a decline from 8.6x in…