Too Early to Tell

A quarter does not make a year, but it’s off to a good start. Dealogic’s latest league tables arrived last week in the new format implemented in Q4 2010, which provides totals for syndicated marine finance loans and then breaks them down into their constituents, shipping and offshore service loans. This is in line with the Norwegian lending focus, disadvantaging pure shipping banks, although these we would guess are few and far between these days, as diversification is a key risk management tool. Data, for this period, is broken down and provided for all three categories, whereas for the last quarter only offshore was broken out. We have come around to this way of thinking and will focus mainly on the totals rather than the individual sectors, although we will mine the latter for interesting data when it appears.

Written by: marinemoney | Categories: Freshly Minted, Market Commentary | April 14th, 2011 | Add a Comment

More Normal?

Dealogic released its first half tables on Wednesday and they resembled, at least in terms of names, what we more typically expect, particularly in the case of the bookrunner table. Nevertheless, the newcomers from the 1st quarter did retain positions on the leader board. Total deal value grew to $17.5 billion comprised of 50 deals, versus the year earlier $43.1 billion comprised of 165 deals, continuing an expected trend. However on a quarter over quarter comparison, transaction volume declined a substantial 47.3% this year marking an even more worrisome trend.

The top 20 bookrunner table underwent the most change as it filled out from 8 banks in the first quarter to 17 in the first half. SMBC held on to first position increasing its volume by 71% and its market share to 6.5%. Nordea returned jumping to 2nd place with a 3.5% market share. SBI Capital fell to 3rd place with Mizhuo and DnB NOR rounding out the top 5. DnB Nor’s placement is significant and representative of its size and importance as its lending, oft repeated, is strictly limited to run-off. In addition to Nordea, the usual European suspects are back, including KfW, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citi, SG CIB and Calyon. RHB Investment Bank of Malyasia and Axis Bank of India were new entrants and added to the already significant Asian representation.