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The Pulse of Private Equity - 4/23/2018

Construction Delays Download PitchBook’s report click here. Last week we highlighted our recent buy-and-build research, which found, among other things, that PE hold periods are significantly impacted by add-on deals. On average, platforms with add-on acquisitions take about one year longer to exit versus bare-bones platforms. That, in turn, has helped pushed out PE holding…

PDI Picks – 4/23/2018

North America: Centre of the fundraising world again Vehicles investing around the world raised more money, but North America is ascendant. Private debt is homing back to North America, potentially bringing an even greater influx of capital to the birthplace of the world’s largest private debt market. North America-centric vehicles were seeking $84.42 billion at…

Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis - 4/23/2018

Unitranche volume dropped meaningfully in 1Q18 Thomson Reuters LPC’s newest unitranche league table provides insight into a very private, opaque market. After peaking at a robust $8.2B in 4Q17, unitranche volume fell off a dramatic 63% in 1Q18. What drove the fall off? Sponsors typically gravitate to the unitranche for ease of execution in M&A…

Private Debt Intelligence - 4/23/2018

Private Debt Funds in Market: An Overview In Q1 2018, direct lending vehicles – a strategy that typically dominates private debt fundraising – accounted for roughly just 36% of funds closed and a similar proportion of aggregate capital raised. This proved to be a decline in proportions from 2017, when the strategy made up 47%…

Markit Recap – 4/16/2018

iTraxx Europe – options can influence volumes Fundamental factors rightly garner the most attention when investors try to ascertain why markets move. Even if one regards markets as perfectly efficient and favour index tracking, it would be foolhardy to completely ignore real world influences when managing money. But the credit markets, in particular, warrant analysis…

Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis - 4/16/2018

U.S. LBO issuance shows more bark than bite in 1Q18 There was a lot of noise around LBO activity last quarter, but in the end 1Q18 U.S. LBO loan issuance totals finished at a modest US$19bn, 17% behind 4Q17’s level of US$22.9bn and 24% behind 1Q17’s US$25.2bn. The good news is that a lot of…

The Pulse of Private Equity - 4/16/2018

Buy, build, repeat Download PitchBook’s report click here. The buy-and-build strategy has largely displaced private equity’s early playbook, which relied on financial engineering and ambitious leveraging to generate profits. To be sure, add-ons have been in PE’s playbook even before the crisis, though to a much smaller degree…. Login to Read More...

Private Debt Intelligence - 4/16/2018

Direct Lending Fundraising Drops in Q1 2018 The private debt industry saw record year in 2017 in which 156 funds raised an aggregate $115bn. Q1 2018 however, has seen a slowdown in fundraising levels – just nineteen private debt funds reached a final close, raising a combined $14bn. Direct lending in particular saw a decrease…

PDI Picks – 4/16/2018

Does size matter? Ask managers, and they’ll say yes. The rush toward credit continues; as the asset class keeps growing, the average fund size has grown with it. In the first quarter of the year, the average private debt fund size stood at $1.25 billion, larger than last year’s four-quarter average of $1.02 billion and…

Markit Recap – 4/9/2018

Risky assets are often beholden to perceptions of geopolitical risk, though in recent times it has been a minor factor. Perhaps that is about to change. The conflict in Syria has taken a terrible twist that threatens to draw the major western powers into a conflict with Russia, with concomitant negative effects on credit markets….