Bank Loan Report articles from January 2008

Bank Loan Report archives from January 2008

Average Deal Size To Decrease In 2008.
January 7, 2008... Despite the market downturn, 2007 remains a successful year for the leveraged loan market, at least in terms of volume. The average loan deal in the U.S. in 2007 was approximately $550 million compared with roughly $351 million in 2006,...

Recovery Rating Methodology To Carry On.
January 7, 2008... With defaults expected to rise anywhere from 2% to 5% in 2008, some investors are looking for the ratings agencies to boost their due diligence when assigning a credit facility's recovery rating. But, Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors...

CLOs Bright Spot In Murky CDO Market.
January 7, 2008... As the CDO market ushers in 2008, many are hoping that the gloomy conditions that plagued 2007 will remain in the past. And while market participants predict that new issuance will continue to move slowly, at least for the first half of the...

Don't Take Your Dough Away From Me ...
January 7, 2008... Don't you leave my deal in misery. Come on, baby, let's start anew... Or, very likely, let's not. Crews were still sweeping away the mess in Times Square when word surfaced of yet another buyout deal left at the altar. This time it was...

Lehman, BofA Start New Year With Billion Plus Issues.
January 7, 2008... Lehman Brothers will launch a $2.2 billion term loan due 2014 for Vernon Hills, Ill.-based technology supplier CDW on Wednesday. Investors hadn't seen analysts' reports and were unable to comment on the credit. Proceeds from the term loan,...

European CDOs Face Uncertain Year.
January 7, 2008... With no crystal ball to guide them, market players are finding it harder to predict how 2007's unprecedented liquidity crunch might affect future European CDO performance. Nevertheless, sources say that there are encouraging signs that might...

Tech, Foreign Mid-Market Deals Not Quashed By Credit Squeeze.
January 14, 2008... Despite an overall slowdown in M&A activity from the last couple of years, market participants forecast new opportunities in midsize deals, especially those in the technology, aerospace/defense and foreign markets. These sectors will experience...

As Other Options Fade, Mezzanine Returns.
January 14, 2008... Mezzanine providers right now are lending credence to the age-old chestnut, Slow and steady wins the race. The primary competition for the asset class over the past couple of years, the second-lien lenders, sped past the comparatively stodgy...

Let The Default Dance Begin.
January 14, 2008... The ratings agencies have predicted a rise in corporate defaults for 2008 for months, and now weve seen at least a couple of companies begin the new year by missing coupon payments on their bonds. Which leads us to wonder who might be next. ...

Some Get High Even, or Especially, When Markets Sink Low.
January 14, 2008... Back when Gordon Gekko pronounced greed good, some of the side effects of the pursuit of success and riches on Wall Streetthe heavy drinking and drug abuseappeared to afflict the investment banking community like a rogue case of chicken pox at...

Exit Financings Fill Loan Market; AGS, Linn Deals To Launchh.
January 14, 2008... Three deals aimed at helping businesses exit Chapter 11 are hitting the leverage loan market. One of these, a $6.8 billion Citigroup and JPMorgan-led deal for Troy, Mich.-based auto parts manufacturer Delphi, will be the largest deal to come to...

Uncertainty Reigns As More Investors Look To Distressed Debt.
January 14, 2008... The downturn in the economy and continued fears about the health of the credit markets have at least one upside: Distressed debt investors finally have a place to put the money theyve been raising for the past two years. As the distressed debt...

Exit Financings Fill Loan Market; AGS, Linn Deals To Launch.
January 14, 2008... Three deals aimed at helping businesses exit Chapter 11 are hitting the leverage loan market. One of these, a $6.8 billion Citigroup and JPMorgan-led deal for Troy, Mich.-based auto parts manufacturer Delphi, will be the largest deal to come to...

Bright Horizons Deal Depicts A New Breed Of M&A.
January 21, 2008... The deal that Bain Capital has agreed to in its buyout of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a Watertown, Mass.-based child care and educational company, is a likely indication of what the M&A and corporate credit markets will be seeing more of...

CDS, LCDS Markets Grab The Limelight.
January 21, 2008... Two weeks ago, bond luminary Bill Gross got out his megaphone and warned investors that increased use of credit default swaps would further damage an already battered market. However, this warning appears unlikely to deter growth in CDS. As...

Lev Finance Market Evolving In Persian Gulf.
January 21, 2008... The countries of the Persian Gulf region are playing an increasingly important role in the corporate credit markets, both through their investment in U.S. investment banks and private equity firms and through the development of corporate debt...

Another Way To Judge The Overhang.
January 21, 2008... I generally take a somewhat cynical view of what dealmakers say on public panels, simply because, market conditions be damned, they always seem to find something to wax optimistic about. But I must admit that at last weeks annual meeting of...

GE Zaps Market With Three Deals.
January 21, 2008... GE Capital is amped up on issuing debt as it markets three credit facilities totaling approximately $652 million this week: a $212 million term loan for Glens Falls, N.Y.-based Boston Scientific Namic Technology; a $250 million debt package for...

Investors Bet On Nasdaq, Push Back On Harrah's.
January 21, 2008... Investors last week seemed ready to put money down on a Bank of America and JPMorgan-led $1.5 billion term loan deal for the Nasdaq Stock Market, but they were not so willing to roll the dice on a BofA and Deutsche Bank-led deal for casino...

CLOs Face Uncertain 2008, Panelists Say.(Discussion)
January 21, 2008... The mood was calm at The Loan Syndications and Trading Associations annual membership meeting last Tuesday, despite expectations of an uncertain year ahead for CLOs. This is a very challenging financial environment; the financial system is...

Ruble CLO Sets Sight On Westerners ... And Waits.
January 21, 2008... Arranger Unicredit Aton International hopes the anxiety of Western European investors will ease soon enough for them to consider a slice of a short-term cash CLO of Russian SMEs that closed at the end of December. We are holding a small piece...

Deal Profile: Mylan Offered Right Medicine For Queasy Market.
January 21, 2008... With a heavy dose of hard work and a smidgen of luck, the various elements of a deal will sometimes simply gel. One recent example of this is Mylan Laboratories roughly $4.7 billion debt package. During what anyone would consider a tough...

ReMax OID Drops To 90, Will Others Follow?
January 28, 2008... Banks involved in a $295 million credit facility for Denver-based real estate agent ReMax International have dropped the deals original issue discount to 90, a low point that has not been reached since a JPMorgan-led deal for Palm back in...

Sun Capital Keeps Fighting For Kellwood.
January 28, 2008... If at first you dont succeed, try getting hostile. That seems to be the working motto of Sun Capital Securities Group, which has pulled out all the stops in its effort to buy apparel maker Kellwood. Sun Capital is now engaged in a hostile...

TRR CLOs Hit by Low Bids.
January 28, 2008... Market value ABS CDOs have taken a beating from declines in the value of their underlying collateral. And now the recent downgrades on synthetic CLOs backed by total return swaps have demonstrated that falling prices in the loan market have put...

Should We Measure Quality Over Quantity?
January 28, 2008... Stephen King has written round about 200 stories, including roughly 50 novels. That doesnt necessarily make him the best writer around, just one of the most prolific. But what about investment banks and their deals, specifically their high...

Barclays, Dresdner Launch $2 Billion-Plus Issue.
January 28, 2008... Barclays and Dresdner Kleinwort are shopping a $2.425 billion credit facility for Bellevue, Wash.-based Puget Energy. The debt package consists of a $2.15 billion term loan and a $275 million senior secured expenditure facility. The deal,...

TXU: Private Equity's Landmark Deal.
January 28, 2008... When TPG and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts executives sat down with World Wildlife Fund chairman emeritus William Reilly to meet with members of the Environmental Defense organization at the San Francisco Mandarin Oriental Hotel in February 2007, the...

Alltel Stretched The Wire For Telecom M&A Size.
January 28, 2008... Alltel Corp.s sale to TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for $27.5 billion was one for the books; it was the largest LBO in the U.S. telecom sector, the second-largest LBO and the fifth-largest M&A transaction in 2007. Last...

Why Some M&A Deals Work Better.(acquisitions and mergers)
January 28, 2008... Executives want to deliver an acquisition that brings the proverbial synergies to their organization. Getting deals right is important when the M&A market is riding high, funding is plentiful and competition drives up prices in bidding wars....