Risks posed by rising inflation, concerns about a global recession and the lingering impact of the war in Ukraine are seeing lenders and investors start to chip away at the loose, borrower-friendly terms that have...more
Management teams and private equity (PE) sponsors have successfully deployed a range of liability management tools to steer companies through the COVID-19 downturn and avoid both bankruptcies and full-blown restructurings. ...more
Leveraged finance defaults are rising as the impact of COVID-19 is felt, but covenant-lite terms, government intervention and support from financial sponsors have mitigated fallout from the pandemic. Leveraged finance...more
We are sadly amid one of the most extraordinary times any of us can remember. The prevailing hope and expectation is that the current extraordinary times and related disruption is temporary. The rise in “cov-lite” and...more
HEADLINES - Default levels remain historically low at 1 per cent to 2 per cent - Prevalence of cov-lite loans in Europe may be concealing some underperformance, but there are no conventional triggers for lenders to...more
- The covenant-lite share of European institutional loan issuance in 2019 reached 92 per cent - European leveraged loan issuance in 2019 was down slightly on the previous year to €209.1 billion - High yield bond...more
Despite political and economic uncertainties, markets and deal activity were resilient in 2019, and strong fundamentals remain in place heading into 2020. Companies continue to face a challenging litigation and enforcement...more
The number of corporate Chapter 11 filings in the United States remained relatively low in 2019. An estimated 6,000 business bankruptcies were filed (based on the data available at the time of writing), which, if it holds up...more
European Leveraged Finance Client Alert Series: Issue 8 - The traditional approach to the treatment of disposal proceeds in leveraged loan agreements has evolved in recent years, as borrowers seek to retain greater...more
On September 19, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee held a hearing to discuss the risks of increased leverage in the loan market and the potential impact leveraged loans and collateralized...more
Cov-lite loans can leave lenders with limited restructuring options, but creative lenders will still find ways to bring debtors to the table - Recent data shows that investor protection in loan documents has fallen to its...more
Much has been written about the influence of US terms on European transactions and particularly the steady migration of US concepts into English law facilities agreements, resulting from the supply-demand imbalance in the...more
As the leveraged debt market has matured at pace in the past decade, many are hopeful that it will maintain an upward trajectory, at least in the medium term. As noted in the report, times have changed, and 2018 has seen a...more
Loans backing LBOs have driven the market in Europe this year, with volumes reaching €56.5 billion, up 37 per cent from €41.3 billion in 2017. By the middle of 2018, total loans in the US breached US$100 billion, up a third...more
A decade on from the onset of the financial crisis, the leveraged debt landscape is almost unrecognisable and continues to evolve as lenders, borrowers and advisers find new ways to come to market. In the aftermath of the...more
In 2016, global sponsors and their advisers were successful in continuing to export their experiences from financing transactions in the US leveraged loan and global bond markets to the European leveraged loan market and this...more