In 2012, a number of M&A transactions completed in 2006
– 2008 were re-financed and re-leveraged and we expect to see
this trend of working through the refinancing "bulge"
continue in 2013. In the case of many of such re-financings,
sponsors sought to take some money off the table by re-financing
and re-leveraging the acquired business after they had tested the
market and were not content with what was on offer. In other cases,
existing debt was simply re-financed and extended.
In the leveraged acquisitions space generally, the very
significant level of cross-border participation on both the lender
and the sponsor side has meant that developments in Canada have
tended to generally follow developments elsewhere. The Canadian
high yield market for leveraged acquisitions continues to mature,
but is still constrained in size to mid-market transactions.
Relatively robust flex provisions continue to be a feature of
Canadian bank transactions, while "covenant
