June 22, 2017 (NEW YORK) – International law firm Proskauer released its 2017 mid-year private credit highlights as a follow up to The Private Credit Group’s annual proprietary deal data report.

Steve Boyko, co-head of The Private Credit Group explains, “The study provides an examination of more than 200 data points for each of the 73 transactions closed by the group in 1H 2017. We are continuously tracking deal flow and by releasing a semi-annual version of our Insights report we are able to provide our clients with an exclusive view into the current state of the private credit markets.”

Highlights from the study include:

• Interest rates fell across all product types and EBITDA bands.
• 69% of deals were acquisitions, with the balance being refinancings and dividend recapitalizations.
• 22% of all deals were in the health care sector.
• Leverage based incrementals are becoming more common, and the size of free and clear baskets continues to grow.
• Education and financial services deals had the lowest leverage on average.
• Lenders are restricting restricted payment capacity with starter baskets decreasing from an average of 24.7% of EBITDA in 2016 to 20.1% in 1H 2017.

The Private Credit Group at Proskauer was the first to dedicate its practice solely to representing providers of private credit and is widely regarded as a pioneer in the industry, developing innovative products such as the upside-down unitranche and synthetic mezzanine. The Firm was also the first to migrate the bifurcated unitranche structure into the European market. Representing over 50 clients, including private debt funds, business development companies, asset managers, finance companies and family offices, the group is able to track deal terms for transactions ranging from $10 million to more than $1 billion across a myriad of product types and industries.