Private Equity
Two weeks ago, many of us gathered in New York to attend the Symposium on Middle Market and Mezzanine Finance, an annual event where many of the leading providers of junior capital convene to discuss the state of the market. Interestingly, the attendees were rather upbeat. Yes, participants were realistic and conceded that leverage levels had risen dramatically, particularly in the last two months and, for larger middle market transactions, are approaching 5.0x total debt to EBITDA. They also acknowledged that pricing had declined during this same period with mezzanine pricing, even on smaller deals, hovering around 14%, and unitranche pricing declining 100-150 bps.
3 min read · 16 May 2011
We’ve seen it before. In fact, every time the financing pendulum swings in one direction or another, the talk starts – “Is mezzanine a dinosaur?” It happened when CLOs emerged and cash flow senior debt providers dipped lower in the capital structure, minimizing the need for mezzanine debt. It happened again when second lien debt entered the middle market and became a competing product. It happened (and continues to happen) when BDCs became a new source of financing and it’s happening once again as unitranche loans gain in popularity and crowd out mezzanine debt. In fact, mezzanine’s demise has been predicted so many times, I hate to bring it up. Yet this time seems a little different because more and more mezzanine funds realize they need to morph into one of two models.
3 min read · 06 May 2011
4 min read · 29 April 2011
3 min read · 19 April 2011
Jaime Romero, a VP with AxialMarket, will weigh in at peHUB.com with the occasional post, applying some of the company’s web-based tools and analytics to a network of qualified buyers and sellers of private companies for our audience. On a quarterly basis, the company aggregates network activity to provide transparency into overall middle market M&A and transaction activity.
2 min read · 12 April 2011
Guest columnists Allie Corless and Jason Segal of Sustainable Development Capital LLP say energy efficiency investments represent an opportunity to “do more with less” and mitigate contributors to climate change through a commercially viable approach.
4 min read · 11 April 2011
2 min read · 30 March 2011
4 min read · 15 February 2011
2 min read · 28 January 2011
5 min read · 27 January 2011
