2008 Outlook Conditions Right For Solid Year, Say Agents, Investors

January 14, 2008

The table is set, and now the private market is ready for dinner. Sources on both the buyside and the sellside are optimistic that 2008 will turn out to be a good year for issuance in the private market, despite an inauspicious end to 2007. The most common refrain on both sides of the market is that banks are expected to be less aggressive and that the credit crunch overall has created a pent-up demand for financing, some of which will inevitably get pushed into private land. Duncan Scott, a director with SG Americas in New York, said his outlook for the private placement market is bullish overall. 'Certainly the fundamentals are in place,' he said. Medium-sized, medium-grade credits in the U.S. and Europe are finding difficult execution in the public debt markets, and bank capital is going to be less available. Both of those factors could cause companies to turn increasingly to the private market for financing in 2008, he said.

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