The Lead Left

Europe is also heating up It’s not just the US seeing transaction activity hit the heights. The leveraged buyout market is helping to create a boom in Europe, too. In last week’s edition of Lead Left, we reflected in this column on the “white hot” US deals market. In Europe, it’s a similar story, with

Unitranches continue to grow in size and scale The size and depth of the direct lending market has grown dramatically in recent years, with mega unitranches increasing in frequency. These larger deals have helped private lenders take market share from the broadly syndicated market and highlighted their growing scale. Back in 2019, there were 13

Another frenetic quarter for the middle market Download PitchBook’s Report here. PitchBook’s latest US Middle Market Report was released today. The frenetic pace of dealmaking continued into the second quarter, reaching an estimated $142.8 billion. That would mark the second highest quarterly total on record, behind Q4 2020’s $156.8 billion. Sandwiched between those two was a

Dry powder levels indicate healthy competition in PD Levels of dry powder in private debt have reached 35% across five main strategies (direct lending, distressed debt, mezzanine, special situations and venture debt) in Q2 2021, with funds sitting on $364bn. This indicates that, based on a three-year fundraising cycle, capital raised is in balance with

Reinforcements needed for deals frontline Private debt transactions are plentiful, but are European fund managers biting off more than they can chew? In last week’s Lead Left, we reflected on our US Report, which accompanied the September 2021 issue of Private Debt Investor, in which Paul Hastings partner William Brady told us that the market