Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (USA) Inc. said on Tuesday that it hired Conrad Owen to run its new Private Capital Markets group, a move that is designed to expand into an area of finance that is expected to see heightened activity amid tightening credit market conditions.
The average new issue spread to U.S. Treasurys for 10-year, NAIC-2 traditional private paper has drifted out more than 200 basis points since August 2007, according to data from Private Placement Letter.
The results of the 2008 Investors Survey are in, and once again MetLife and Prudential Financial led the field by far. Both firms even managed to substantially increase their investments in private placements, in a year when the total amount of private placement issuance dropped off by more than 30% between the first and second halves of the year.
Several utility deals in the public bond market over the past two weeks provided a better idea where bonds are pricing, however the added clarity has only confirmed the fact that the overall market is still unstable and spreads are still prohibitively wide for issuers.
Deal flow continued to be sparse last week in the private placement market, however rumors were floating in the market about a first mortgage bond being led by Citigroup, and a timber deal from Banc of America Securities.
London-based Barclays Capital has rearranged its private placement team in the wake of last month's buyout of Lehman Brothers. If it is normally said that 'to the victor belong the spoils,' it is not necessarily so in this situation; Barclays has dismissed one of its group co-heads and placed a Lehman staffer at the head of the group and in other key positions.