Bank Loan Report articles from May 2008

Bank Loan Report archives from May 2008

Aviva High Yield Bulks Up And Goes Global.
May 5, 2008... Aviva Capital Management's new head of high yield, Todd Youngberg, sees now as a good time to jump into the junk bond market, which holds opportunities for those who think globally. Growth in demand for global high yield over the last several...

MJX Closes Single Tranch Refi CLO.
May 5, 2008... MJX Asset Management last weekclosed Veer Cash Flow CLO, a newly restructured incarnation of a market value transaction, Veer Loan Opportunities Fund. As part of the restructuring, MJX purchased the entire $15 million mezzanine tranche and...

Investors Warming Distressed Bench.
May 5, 2008... Private equity groups, banks, hedge funds and others have raised large pools of capital to invest in distressed debt. However, the size and scope of the opportunity is still unclear, and market developments have not given a definitive signal...

A Few Reasons To Break Out Your Horns.
May 5, 2008... Admit it, you woke up feeling a bit bullish this morning. Maybe in your off time you hang with Goldilocks, or maybe the latest bits of good news have yet to convince you that we're "out of the woods," as they say. But despite your bearish...

Goldman Sachs Shops Bright Horizons Term Loan B.(Goldman Sachs and Co. is marketing $340 million credit facility for Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc.)(Merrill Lynch has appointed Thomas Montag)(Bank of America has appointed Tom White)
May 5, 2008... Goldman Sachs is marketing a $340 million credit facility for Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a Watertown, Mass.-based provider of child-care services including summer camps, vacation care and college preparation. The debt package, which...

Banks Ready LyondellBasell Term Loan B.
May 5, 2008... Underwriters for Dutch oil refiner LyondellBasell Industries this week plan to launch a $7.5 billion term loan B. Price talk is at Libor plus 375 bps, with an OID in the low to mid-90s, according to a source close to the deal. Bank meetings are...

Mezzanine Lenders: Show Us the Money.(Report)
May 5, 2008... Mezzanine lenders have held tight throughout the credit crisis; however, they have yet to squeeze out significantly higher prices. According to Lincoln International's Ronald Kahn, a managing director at the advisory firm, mezzanine debt,...

Trouble Takes Stage Through Revolving Door.(Financial report)
May 5, 2008... Revolving credit facilities are typically far down the list of things institutional investors have to fret about. However, that might not be the case by the end of the second quarter as debt maturities loom for various stressed companies,...

The Return of the Greenback (In Loans).(Liquid Credit Derivative Index)(Report)
May 12, 2008... Cash loans are outperforming synthetic loans, giving a shot of adrenaline to a recuperating leverage finance market. And market sources say they expect this trend to continue as traders focus more on fundamentals than technicals. For...

Settlement Houses Look To Boost Efficiency.(ACBS Loan Systems is revamping its online loan settlement software)
May 12, 2008... Trade settlement house ACBS Loan Systems is revamping its online loan settlement platform, ClearPar, to boost the data exchange between ClearPar and other ACBS loan trading software, as well as between ClearPar and third-party software...

Has Wall Street Escaped Its Credit Woes.
May 12, 2008... Sentiment about U.S. credit markets has improved in recent weeks, thanks in part to a March bailout of Bear Stearns orchestrated by the Federal Reserve, as well as a steady campaign by the U.S. central bank to improve the liquidity of fragile...

Energy Issuers Ride Oil Price Geyser To HY Market.
May 12, 2008... As I write this, oil prices hover at a mind-boggling $123 a barrel, and pain at the gas pump has created a united front of kvetching across an otherwise divided country. It's also created, quite contrarily, a happy little boom on the high yield...

BofA Shops TLB for Kleen, Readies CommScope TLB.
May 12, 2008... By 2020, Swedish car maker Volvo has promised an injury-proof car. If you think that sounds like a long time, consider this: It will take until 2022 before a $315 million term loan B for Middletown, Conn.-based power company Kleen Energy...

ResCap Bondholders See Few Options.
May 12, 2008... High yield bond investors who hold Residential Capital notes last week expressed resignation over the bond exchange offer the company has initiated. And other investors agree that, while it is not the best deal around, the bondholders don't...

Babson Capital Sails Through Rocky CLO Market.
May 19, 2008... Babson Capital Management is currently marketing its fourth CLO-related transaction since the beginning of the year, adding to the 50-plus CDOs it currently oversees. But some investors are wondering where the commitments are coming from, given...

Investors Skeptical of Newsday Deal.
May 19, 2008... Investors had mixed reactions to the Tribune Company's decision to sell the Long Island newspaper Newsday to Cablevision for $650 million. On one hand, Tribune's outstanding debt is more than $10 billion, so any step to reduce the debt is...

The Art of Looking Up, But Not Too Far.(private equity conference )(Viewpoint essay)
May 19, 2008... I seem to find myself forever in search of the "happy medium." You name it-politics, religion, food. Extremes have come to define our culture, in all its obese, bulimic glory. And the financial markets, which see elation one day and misery...

European Market Sees New CLO Activity.
May 19, 2008... Two new CLO deals were marketed in Europe last week, and one deal closed on the public market. However, market sources say that the activity of the past weeks still doesn't offer a definitive direction as to where pricing will settle. The...

JPMorgan, BofA Ready Dex Media West TLB.
May 19, 2008... JPMorgan and Bank of America are gearing up to launch a $950 million term loan B for yellow pages publisher Dex Media West. Price talk is between Libor plus 350 bps and Libor plus 375 bps, with an OID in the upper 90s. "The deal's leverage is...

Nortek Puts New Wrinkle In Deal, Prices $750M.
May 19, 2008... The high yield primary market's recovery was illustrated last week by Nortek's successful pricing of $750 million in high yield bonds. But while the deal may seem to offer a glimmer of hope to the troubled home-building sector, the company is...

Issuers Forced To Amend Covenants, Pay Fees.
May 19, 2008... Companies that have debt maturing in the next year, especially those affected by the rising cost of oil, could be forced to offer lenders hefty amendments to waive certain covenant agreements. UAL, the parent company of United Airlines,...

Mergers Of HY And Loan Groups To Continue.
May 19, 2008... Just like some marriages are meant to last and will survive the tests of time, the union of high yield bond and leveraged loan trading groups, a trend which began a few years ago, will likely continue into the foreseeable future, market...

Despised Dividend Deals Not So Dangerous.
May 26, 2008... Private equity firms have borne plenty of criticism from the investment community for carrying out dividend-paying leveraged recapitalizations of portfolio companies, but a new analysis of LBO bond and loan issuances indicates that these...

ResCap May Need A Little Help From Its Friends.
May 26, 2008... A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a story about Residential Capital's bond redemption, which sources said bondholders had little choice but to approve. Now the company says it has enough support from bondholders to go ahead with the offer to...

Firmer Secondary, Less Overhang Spur Europe.
May 26, 2008... Some say it's the sunshine, and with the fabulous weather Europe has been enjoying, one could hardly argue. Whatever the reason is, the European leveraged loan market is moving, and though many claim they are still waiting for the next...

Investors Await Other Parts To Lyondell TLB.
May 26, 2008... As a bank syndicate last week launched a $2.5 billion term loan B tranche for newly formed Dutch oil refiner LyondellBasell, investors pondered when the other two $2.5 billion tranches would launch. "I think [the underwriters] will get the B-2...

PIK Panic Not Gripping the Untoggled.(payment-in-kind)
May 26, 2008... Using the toggle feature of a PIK toggle tranche does appear to hurt, unsurprisingly, a company's other more senior tranches on secondary trading. And a look at a variety of companies with yet-to-be toggled PIKs shows that these tranches tend...

Three Deals Shine on the Secondary.
May 26, 2008... Two recent loan deals have climbed upward on the secondary market after breaking for trading, and another is likely to do the same. This is an achievement considering that most deals, even discounted issues with plenty of room to rise, aren't...

Auto Supplier Visteon Makes Hybrid Tender Offer.
May 26, 2008... Automobile parts supplier Visteon is making bondholders an offer they probably won't refuse. The Van Buren Township, Mich.-based company approached bondholders last week with a tender offer for bonds maturing in 2010. This tender offer is...