The sexy side of corporate finance has been on a tear, with Moody’s saying this week that 2017’s M&A market in EMEA was the busiest in almost a decade.
Big buyouts bring big debt financings. Sterling loan signings had their busiest quarter in at least five years in the months up to July, fueled by company shopping sprees. This will likely continue with Comcast’s £25.9bn debt funded swoop on media company Sky.
But away from the multibillion pound headlines, swathes of loans bankers are no busier than usual. Secretive M&A activity is on a strict need to know basis, and most banks are finding that they rarely need to know. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are providing the debt for the Comcast loan, and lenders away from the deal are half resigned to not seeing much of it in syndication given how bond markets remain a strong, quick and easy route to refinance bridge facilities.
Many heads of loans complained about overall volumes dropping by more than 20% in the first half of the year. It doesn’t look like the rest of 2018 will do much to change that for most, no matter how eye-popping the M&A activity.