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Augusto Urmeneta, Merrill Lynch: a choppy end to the year, but a good start to 2008 |
"Obviously it depends on whether there are more market surprises or not but I think that there will be an increase in activity in the first quarter of next year," says Augusto Urmeneta, head of debt capital markets at Merrill Lynch. "It will also be a period where people will take advantage of any liquidity while it lasts."
From August 1 to the end of November there were 124 bond deals out of Latin America. This contrasts with the 183 transactions that came to market in the four months before the credit crisis in the US – a 33% decrease in the total number of deals. There was also a 26% fall in the number of high-yield corporate debt issues out of the region from August to November this year compared with the same period in 2006.
Some bankers believe that in the first quarter of next year the deal volume will return to levels equivalent to, or higher than, in the period before the credit crunch.