Octus on Credit: JP Morgan LevFin Conference forecasts a growing market

Geoff Burrows, Assistant Editor, Americas

Last week leveraged finance bankers, lawyers and investors descended on Miami for the annual JP Morgan Leveraged Finance Conference. We learned of some big deals coming in the pipeline, but were told not to expect a surge of new money until the second half of the year owing to a muted M&A environment and tariff and political uncertainty.

Takeaways include the bank suggesting spreads will stay tight for the next 12 to 24 months and see the market growing about $70 billion in total issuance this year. Leveraged credit will grow as a whole, with almost $50 billion in new issuance, dominated by loans. Private Credit and LMEs were also prominent features of the South Beach conference.

One name that dominated conference chatter was Bausch Health. After the company presented on Monday morning and held one on ones with investors, Octus learned JP Morgan was leading a deal to refinance Bausch’s near term debt and stabilize its long term operations. The deal, which could be to the tune of $5 billion, is expected to hit the market soon, and based on on the ground feedback from investors, should do well in what might be a remarkable turnaround for the pharma giant. 

In addition to Bausch Health, last week Octus subscribers got the early scoop on multibillion-dollar financing deals for Novolex and Walgreens. 

As new deals hit the market, you can expect more scoops and updates from Octus on the deal pipeline this year.

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