Loan Market

State of the Loan Market (Last of a Series)

In what was the highest price ever paid for a painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold last week for $450.3 million at a Christie’s auction, beating by a wide margin the $179 million forked over two years ago for Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger.” The price tag also topped the entire building cost of New…

State of the Loan Market (Third of a Series)

Besides the Annual LSTA Conference, the other recent industry gathering of note was the Creditflux CLO Conference in NY. The focus here was trends in structured finance, from both issuer and investor perspectives. Collateral loan obligations, as we’ve covered in a special series [link], represent the majority of loan buyers in the broadly syndicated market….

State of the Loan Market (Second of a Series)

The backdrop for US credit got a boost from several corners last week. First, the nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next Fed chief ensured monetary policy would be, if not unchanged, at least in experienced hands. Also, the October labor report – 261,000 new jobs added– came in pretty much where economists expected….

State of the Loan Market (First of a Series)

The French are running out of butter. C’est impossible! Bad weather, falling milk production, and revived global demand for the dairy product have left bare shelves in France, particularly Brittany. This in a nation where consumers eat three times as much butter annually (18 lbs. per capita) as in the US. L’affaire du beurre (a.k.a….