Euro Secondary Looks Better Than Primary.

Publication: Bank Loan Report

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Byline: Savita Iyer-Ahrestani

The bolt from the blue that was Lehman Brothers/Merrill Lynch has only further enhanced the year's ongoing trend in the European leveraged loan market: the attractiveness of the secondary market over the primary.

Naturally, loan prices were smashed by the events of the past couple of weeks, but they had already been low prior to the mess, having fallen slightly over the previous weeks from the gains seen in the early part of the summer. Last week, sources said, the average price of loans in the secondary was 84, a point below the February low of 85. As such, investors still believe that the secondary is the place to find loan deals, if they're going to invest in loans at all, and this will make it harder for new primary deals to price.

"I see little point in buying primary loan deals...

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