Sentiment in Middle Eastern, Russian and other emerging syndicated loan markets remained bleak this week, with bankers saying that there was little hope of any improvement before January.
"It’s been tumultuous, with everyone watching the meltdown on their screens," said one source. "A lot of banks are just sitting on the sidelines, waiting for some calm."
The Middle Eastern market is all but paralysed, bankers said. One source at a European house said he knew of five deals whose launches — expected in the next four to six weeks — had been delayed until at least the beginning of 2009.
Exemplifying how tough conditions are, the $2.2bn facility for Dubai Drydocks, the Dubai World subsidiary, was only just fully subscribed. "It scraped home," said one banker close to the deal. "That’s telling, because Dubai Inc deals had been flying so far this year."
The deal has a three year tenor and lenders were invited to commit in dollars, UAE dirhams or Singapore dollars.
Despite gaining 10.9% yesterday (Thursday) Russia’s RTS index had another bad week. Also, four of the country’s top borrowers — oil and gas groups Gazprom, Lukoil, Rosneft and TNK-BP — asked the Kremlin for loans to refinance existing debt and to fund new projects.
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