Bank Loan Report articles from February 2008

Bank Loan Report archives from February 2008

January Leaves Lev Finance Markets Out In The Cold.
February 4, 2008... For the leveraged finance markets, as for most of us, January represents a fresh start. Typically, investor appetite is strong in the first month of the year, and banks try to cash in by launching new deals. However, with liquidity strained and...

Smaller Players See Hiring Opportunity.
February 4, 2008... Anyone who has an older sibling un derstands the feeling, and it seems a decent analogy for the U.S. leveraged finance markets as far as smaller players are concerned: It's like your big brother has left home, and you have the house all to...

More Lenders DIP Their Toes In Restructuring.(debtor-in-possession)
February 4, 2008... Along with the expected increase in defaults and bankruptcies this year will come a new cycle of restructuring with its own nuances. Nontraditional lenders, such as hedge funds and private equity firms, are increasingly getting into the game...

Now Really Is The Winter Of Our Discontent ...
February 4, 2008... When I was 14, rambunctious and getting into things I shouldn't have been, my father grounded me for an entire holiday season. My sequestering began with a Thanksgiving release date, but I then got into more trouble, and he extended my...

BofA To Launch Axcan Deal, Harrah's Gets Shelved.
February 4, 2008... Bank of America launched a $350 million term loan B for Canadian pharmaceutical company Axcan Pharma Thursday. Even though the company's debt to Ebitda is expected to be around 4.6x, a high mark for some investors, the deal should be able to...

Broken LBO Deals Don't Break All Hearts.
February 4, 2008... Like Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees let loose on a teenage slumber party, the economy continues to fill fresh graves with dead LBO deals. But unlike the universal terror caused by these movie slashers, some may be glad to see a few LBO deals...

Middle-Market CLO Trends And Outlook For 2008.
February 4, 2008... The year 2008 begins with a tale of two seemingly conflicted realities. On one hand, middle-market collateralized loan obligation transactions continue to perform well and to avoid downgrades. On the other hand, deal flow is diminished and...

Banks Baring It All For Investors.
February 11, 2008... There is a notorious dream in which the dreamer arrives to school or work in the buff. This fear of being revealed haunts most of us, but in the leveraged finance world, baring your, er, assets may be good for business. Hence, bankers are...

CLO Woes Not Due to Fundamentals.
February 11, 2008... Blame it on the N.Y. Giants' Super Bowl victory or a streak of luck at the blackjack tables, but panelists at last week's American Securitization Forum's annual conference in Vegas were optimistic about liquidity returning to the CLO space. ...

Big Loans See Big Troubles.
February 11, 2008... A confluence of factors has undercut the leveraged finance market, putting the syndication efforts for large leveraged buyout loans at risk. The latest casualties are Lehman Brothersa $2.2 billion debt syndication for Madison Dearborn Partners...

Desperate Times Make For Desperate Banks.
February 11, 2008... The task of syndicating sub-investment-grade debt has gotten downright Herculean, especially on larger deals. So, like the magician who always has one more trick up his sleeve, investment banks have begun to get creative in their attempts to...

Recent Deals Dance On A Libor Floor.
February 11, 2008... Over the past several months, loan investors have been playing their own version of "Deal or No Deal," NBC's game show hosted by Howie Mandel. As they decline what banks have to offer, investors have been trying to anticipate what the next...

For M&A, The Future Looks SPACtastic.
February 11, 2008... While the credit markets are on the long road to recovery, those interested in mergers and acquisitions are increasingly turning to special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, to get deals done. The current lack of liquidity in the...

CIT, Merrill, American Capital Remain Active.
February 11, 2008... American Capital is marketing a $430 million credit facility for Painesville, Ohio-based Ranpak. "This is a great company," said a New Jersey-based investor. "We're going to get involved." Ranpak's debt package consists of a $250 million...

Investors Eye Calpine, Underwriters Alter Three Deals.
February 18, 2008... Goldman Sachs is ready to flip the switch on part of the exit facility for Calpine, a San Jose, Calif.-based energy company. Goldman was revving up to market part of a $6.3 billion term loan last month (BLR, Jan. 14, 2008). Many deals recently...

Bank Balance Sheet CLOs See Issuance.
February 18, 2008... Despite what seems like an almost nonexistent CDO market, bank balance sheet CLOs are still garnering investor interest, according to sources. While many of these deals are not publicly marketed, the high premiums banks have paid to get...

Unwinds, Write-Downs And Weirdness, Oh My.(trends in financial markets)
February 18, 2008... Dorothy just wanted to go home, back to Kansas where life was in black and white. Instead, she got kidnapped by delinquent flying monkeys, force-fed poppy dust by a pusher witch (with an irrational hatred of dogs) and finally arrived in Oz to...

Floating-Rate Funds Hit With TKO.
February 18, 2008... In a strange role reversal reminiscent of Disney's "Freaky Friday" films, floating-rate funds and junk bond funds have found themselves trading places, with the loan funds now underperforming bond funds significantly. And observers are calling...

RBC Streamlines Trading, Takes Aim At U.S.
February 18, 2008... With the overlap the leveraged loan and high yield bond markets have seen over the past couple of years, a number of firms have consolidated these businesses in some way, and now RBC Capital Markets has joined their ranks. For the first...

CLOs Battle Liquidation In Already Troubled Market.
February 18, 2008... Falling prices are forcing total-rate-of-return market-value CLOs to liquidate their underlying assets. These unwinding CLOs could present opportunities for investors, but could also drive prices down even further. And sources say the loan...

Asian Leveraged Finance Set To Come Of Age.
February 25, 2008... Everyone, hopefully anyway, learns at a young age that Asia is the largest continent on Earth. Now banks are learning that the young Asian leveraged finance market is growing up. However, current credit market conditions combined with the...

Investors Balk At Lack Of Collateral Protection.
February 25, 2008... Proponents of covenants say that attractive spreads may not be enough to draw traditional investors back to the leveraged loan market in droves. With investors more discriminating than ever, and defaults beginning to pile up, deals that do not...

Private Equity Doesn't Sleep, Debt Market Or No.
February 25, 2008... Seems the signs continue to point to a private equity market that motors along (albeit at a much reduced velocity), getting deals done any which way it can, with credit agreements from investment banks, or without. Back in November, we...

Banks Pull Out All The Stops On New Deals.
February 25, 2008... More and more deals are coming to market with incentives to lure loan investors in. The latest is a Merrill Lynch-led credit facility for Capella Healthcare, a Franklin, Tenn.-based hospital operator. The $535 million debt package consists of a...

Where Are They Now? In Investors' Shopping Baskets.
February 25, 2008... The credit market downturn has left many of last year's high yield loan and bond issues-even those that came to the primary amid investor praise-pricing well below par, often across industry lines and without regard to individual company...