•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Investors and lenders might be getting more comfortable with the market. A new report from William Blair shows that the leveraged lending market improved in the first quarter of this year. Leveraged lending activity rose $49.5 billion in Q1-an increase of almost 40% from Q4. This marks the second consecutive quarter that leveraged lending activity has increased.

Refinancing accounted for the bulk of the activity - 70%.

The report says that over 50% of leveraged lenders expect pricing to remain the same with those anticipating pricing to modestly increase or decrease essentially offsetting one another. Leverage and terms are expected to continue modestly tightening as lenders seek ways to mitigate risk through documentation as pricing stabilizes at a faster pace.

This data tracks with data from Bloomberg which shows that US lenders did more $22 billion in loans in April, compared to just $8 billion in March.

The data suggest that borrowers are taking advantage of lending while it is available. Some borrowers are coming over from the broadly syndicated loan market which is still very tight. There are still soft spots, however. M&A related volume declined for the sixth consecutive quarter to a total of $9.8 billion, a level not seen since the Great Recession, William Blair said.

Th......................

To view our full article Click here