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Sunday, November 8, 
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Leon Black says LBO debt markets will return in 2008

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Leon_Black.jpgApollo Management LP founder Leon Black (pictured) is calling a bottom for the drought of financing for leveraged buyouts, predicting that lending will make a comeback in 2008.

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Bloomberg is reporting that he said that banks have unloaded enough of the leveraged debt commitment backlog off their books to begin providing the financing needed for new LBOs. "We're well on our way to a credit-market recovery," Black said during a panel discussion in Beverly Hills, Calif. As more LBO debt is sold off in the next six months, "the banks will be in business again."

Investment banks have been working hard to move the debt commitments from their books by selling billions of dollars of the leveraged loans at steep discount.

  • Deutsche Bank AG has sold $5 billion in LBO debt to private equity firms at 90 cents on the dollar;
  • Citigroup is hoping to part with $12 billion of its committed debt
  • Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has offered the deepest discount so far selling €100 million ($158 million) of the senior leveraged debt of Bavaria Yachtbau GmbH at the rock-bottom price of €0.65 on the euro to unnamed hedge funds.

Standard & Poor's estimates that the banks have cut their leveraged loan holdings to $95 billion from the $245 billion when the credit crunch began last July.

The credit markets and the state of dealmaking for buyout firms will be front and center at The Deal's Fifth Annual Private Capital Symposium on May 14. Featured speakers include Kenneth D. Moelis, CEO of Moelis & Co., and Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group LP, as well as panels on debt financing, sovereign wealth funds and the middle market. - George White

See Bloomberg story
See story about Deutsche Bank debt sales from TheDeal.com
See Dealscape post on Citigroup
See Dealscape post on Goldman Sachs
See story about debt markets from TheDeal.com
See more on Private Capital Symposium





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