As a long-term participant in the #CreditMarkets, we’ve learned the most intriguing times are not when things are going swimmingly for issuers or investors. Life is becomes interesting when trends begin to shift, at the inflection points. These are often apparent only in hindsight. The Great Recession, for example, ended in June, 2009 – barely […]
“Where to draw the line is also key as we examine #SeniorStretch and #unitranche loans. Besides leverage and loan-to-value, yield is helpful in identifying these financings. Unitranche is a one-stop solution blending senior and junior tranches into one. With more than thirty unitranche suppliers out there, leverage and pricing reflect competition among those firms, rather […]
This week we fearlessly tackle one of the most frequently asked questions in private credit: Namely, where do you draw the line between a #SeniorStretch loan and a #Unitranche? It’s a topic that’s gained increasing traction as issuer leverage has risen steadily, going back well before the financial crisis. Back in the early 2000’s when […]
Issuers in leveraged lending today are divided into three categories: the haves, the have-nots, and the wish-they-hads. With about six weeks of business left to the year, the differences between haves and have-nots is growing. In the #BroadlySyndicatedMarket, the combination of triple-C anxiety among CLO managers and cash out-flow worries with retail funds have impelled […]
Tracking data in the capital markets is often a challenge. There are lies, damnable lies, and leveraged loan statistics. But when a lot of metrics point in the same direction, truth is buried there somewhere. Such is the case with data showing both M&A and related loan volume slumped for the third quarter, large and […]
Last week we took on the question of deal flow. How does the backdrop of M&A activity relate to the volume of reported sponsored debt financings? This week, we took to the road in search of answers. At the SuperReturn Private Credit conference in Chicago, we chaired the first day of panels. There we had […]
In the warmer climes of leveraged loans, market observers contemplated other mega moves. One is economic data. Manufacturing fell to levels not seen since the Great Recession, while the services index dropped to its worst showing since August 2016. But there were signs of optimism. Friday’s labor data – 136,000 jobs created – showed the […]
Anthony Mancinelli, the world’s oldest barber, passed away last week at the age of 108. Mr. Mancinelli started cutting hair in 1923, when Warren Harding was President, and only retired this past summer – 96 years later. When asked for his secret to longevity, the barber from Naples replied, “I eat thin spaghetti.” We haven’t […]
Last month, in an historic achievement, a French inventor named Franky Zapata flew his hoverboard, the Flyboard Air, across the English Channel. It was also the 110th anniversary of France’s first successful plane crossing. His success was not guaranteed. Ten days earlier, Monsieur Zapata crashed at the halfway point trying to refuel. Said the unharmed […]
As our faithful readers know, the Lead Left is a keen observer of the heavens. So it’s with great interest that an observatory in Crimea detected an interstellar visitor – a comet called Borisov, that will swing it close the Earth just in time for Christmas. According to one astronomer, “It might behave the same […]