Mad Dogs and Panameños!
FATHER KNOWS BEST!
At the beginning of 2024, the White & Case leveraged finance team made a series of predictions on how the leveraged loan and high yield bond markets would perform in 2024. After 12 months of softer markets in 2023, the...more
A strong finish to 2023 helped to boost global leveraged loan issuance at the end of an otherwise rocky year for all key markets. The last 12 months were incredibly challenging for banks, investors and borrowers, as elevated...more
High interest rates weighed down on deals, precipitating a drop in leveraged loan issuance in 2023. However, there are reasons to be optimistic that deal activity will pick up in 2024 - As our latest leveraged finance...more
The International Organisation of Securities Commissions, or IOSCO, has published a Consultation Report on good practices for consideration in relation to leveraged loans and CLOs....more
In its highly anticipated decision, the Second Circuit has answered the question of whether a syndicated term loan qualifies as a “security” with a definitive “no”. On August 24, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...more
Loan issuance across all major jurisdictions saw year-on-year double-digit declines during the first half of 2023, as high inflation and rising interest rates continued to weigh on loan activity The first half of 2023 has...more
As the private credit industry has relentlessly expanded and the capital available for deployment by private credit asset managers has rapidly grown, those investing at the top end of the market have increasingly had to...more
High yield bond activity in key global markets showed signs of life in Q1 2023, with quarter-on-quarter issuance improving despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges. In the US, high yield bond issuance in Q1 2023 came in at...more
European leveraged finance markets have been completely reconfigured in the past 12 months. Inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty have squeezed liquidity and seen high yield bond and leveraged loan...more
Leveraged finance activity slowed on both sides of the Atlantic in the first half of the year, as a tougher macroeconomic environment and events in Ukraine affected debt issuance in both Europe and the US....more
Lenders and borrowers in US leveraged finance markets have had to recalibrate pricing and issuance volume expectations in 2022 in the face of rising inflation and interest rates....more
A rebound in European corporate transactions has driven a double-digit acceleration in leveraged finance earmarked for M&A (excl. buyouts), with a robust pipeline setting the stage for an active 2022. In the summer of...more
HEADLINES - ▪️ In the US, leveraged loan issuance for 2021 reached US$1.4 trillion, a 63% increase year-on-year ▪️ The high yield bond market in the US was relatively flat, rising from US$428.3 billion in 2020 to...more
A flurry of activity saw year-on-year leveraged finance issuance in Europe hit new heights in 2021. Can this pace be maintained in the months ahead? Based on pipeline activity and investor appetite for growth, the answer...more
- In the US, leveraged loan issuance for 2021 reached US$1.4 trillion, a 63% increase year-on-year - The high yield bond market in the US was relatively flat, rising from US$428.3 billion in 2020 to US$429.7 billion in...more
Following a year of healthy activity, M&A deals in the pipeline are set to sustain leveraged finance issuance in the pharmaceutical, medical and biotech sector in the months ahead - Lender appetite for exposure to the...more
European leveraged finance markets roared back to life in 2021, sparked by a combination of attractive pricing in the first half of the year and buoyant M&A activity in the second half. The result? High volumes of refinancing...more
Investors eager to maintain high levels of capital deployment have kept terms and pricing highly flexible for bond and loan issuers, but that does not mean easy access for borrowers—lenders are still pushing back against...more
The rise in sustainability-linked debt issuance observed in 2021 has shown little sign of slowing down as borrowers continue to focus on improving environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in response to investor...more
African loan and bond issuance fell by just under 10% in the first half of 2021, year-on-year, with lenders still jittery after Zambia missed a bond repayment in November 2020 to become the first African sovereign to default...more
Demand for net asset value (NAV) finance—where private equity (PE) firms raise borrowings against the NAV of the assets in their funds—is on the rise. NAV finance is still a relatively esoteric, industry-specific product, and...more
Credit unions: PRA 2020 annual assessment of category 5 credit unions - The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has updated its webpage on credit unions to publish letters sent to directors of category 5 credit...more
Akin Gump London-based financial restructuring partner Liz Osborne and finance partners Amy Kennedy and Stephen Peppiatt discuss European bonds, loans and the various flavors of covenants in the current liquidity constrained...more
On Nov. 15, 2019, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (the “Board”) released its semiannual Financial Stability Report. The report presents the Board’s current assessment of the resilience of the U.S. financial...more