Global news and insight for corporate financial professionals
GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS Initial public offerings in the United States plunged 86% last year to the lowest level in 31 years, with only one IPO priced in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Thomson Reuters. By comparison, 60 ...
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS The volume of worldwide mergers and acquisitions fell 30% last year compared with 2007, but the decline in announced deals would have been even larger without the government bailouts of financial institutions, which represented a ...
CORPORATE DEBT Government programs designed to thaw the frozen credit markets appeared to be having some effect in early January, opening a window of opportunity for a flood of investment-grade corporate debt issues, but analysts say the credit ...
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS * Figures may not add up, as more than one bank typically obtains credit for any one transaction. Merger and acquisition activity in the middle market, which had held up relatively well in the ...
CORPORATE DEBT A combination of heavy supply and rising defaults makes it difficult to forecast a bottom for the credit markets in 2009, analysts say. The new-issue market in US high-yield bonds remained frozen solid late last year, ...
GLOBAL EQUITY /DRS More than 1,000 unsponsored American depositary receipt programs were created in the last three months of 2008, in many cases without the permission of the companies whose shares are being traded in the US over-the-counter ...
GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS The Bank of New York Mellon introduced 31 new global depositary receipt indexes, including a master index of all GDRs traded on the London Stock Exchange. The bank, which acts as depositary for more than 1,300 ...
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS Government-encouraged bank mergers and bailouts are keeping global M&A; activity alive amid the financial crisis, which has severely restricted financing for corporate buyouts. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo’s $15.1 billion acquisition of Wachovia, which derailed a ...
CORPORATE DEBT Participants in the over-the-counter credit default swaps (CDS) market have sharply reduced the notional amount of CDS contracts outstanding this year through a series of portfolio compression cycles, also known as tear-ups. The notional outstanding volume ...
BEST DERIVATIVES PROVIDERS 2008 Global Finance’s fifth annual awards for the World’s Best Derivatives Providers come against a backdrop of unprecedented change in financial markets. The long bull market came to an end last year. In its place ...
GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS There were only five initial public offerings in the US market in the third quarter, with no IPO activity after early August. In Europe, withdrawn IPOs were at the highest level in the ...
GLOBAL Crunching the numbers: Businesses are preparing themselves for difficult times ahead. Much of the coverage on the credit crunch has focused on the impact it is having on banks and capital markets, but in a ...
CORPORATE DEBT Credit markets remain stalled despite heroic efforts by global central banks, regulators and governments to restore confidence in the financial system. A lack of liquidity has made issuing new high-yield bonds almost ...
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS Worldwide announced mergers and acquisitions in the first three quarters of 2008 declined by 25% from the same period a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters, reflecting the effects of the credit crunch ...
SPOTLIGHT / EMERGING MARKETS Emerging markets have been some of the best performers of recent years. Is their continued growth now under threat? Since the credit crunch began more than a year ago, it has inflicted most pain on ...
CORPORATE DEBT Less than $1 billion of US high-yield bonds were sold in August, one of the lowest monthly totals ever, as rising defaults and widening spreads above US treasury securities steered investors away from the market. Caribbean Restaurants, the ...
GLOBAL Vazza: Expects the default rate to continue growing. As private equity investors size up the new opportunities the credit crunch presents, companies in their sights might do well to consider a report published ...
GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS Hong Kong’s stock exchange has put a framework in place to begin trading depositary receipts, which will make it the only Asian exchange to allow DR issuers to target retail investors. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKex) ...
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS Europe passed the United States in corporate dealmaking in August thanks to two large transactions, including a spin-off and a hostile bid. The total of US mergers and acquisitions for the year to date of $849 billion, ...
CORPORATE DEBT More than a year after the credit crunch burst onto the global stage, regulators and banks are still searching for a way to end the crisis, which appears to be morphing into a chronic condition. The ...