The Debt Finance 2014 Conference – Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Trends & Opportunities

Welcoming note from the conference chairman:

The Redcliffe annual debt finance conference is one of the leading debt market conferences in Europe, attracting over 240 participants on previous conferences. Deal-makers and professionals consider Redcliffe’s conferences to be an ideal forum for topical discussion on the latest ideas, trends and developments.

This highly successful debt finance programme will focus on the key trends, developments and issues in the debt markets covering investment grade and high yield, large and mid-caps, public and private sources and introducing a new topic on the highly successful retail bond market.

Prior to the crisis, European corporates had taken advantage of easier access to both loan finance and, in some cases, equity capital markets. The financial crisis has triggered a structural change in the financing of mid to large corporates in Europe which, increasingly, are relying on the bond markets for salvation (though leveraged loans are having the busiest year since 2007). This change has been driven by an increasingly familiar list of suspects; contracting bank balance sheets, the fact that banks seem to be paying as much, if not higher rates for their funding than many of their customers and the search for returns by yield-hungry investors.

However, bond markets, by virtue of the constraints on size and credit quality, cannot cater for all players and other, established, forms of bank and ABL lending remain the only source of finance for those borrowers. This conference also examines the trends driving those more traditional forms of funding. In a further development, retail bonds have gained traction with over £3bn issued since 2010, and this conference will address the question of whether this source will prove attractive to mid-cap firms.

We have drawn together a raft of experts from the major household names in the market who will be sharing their insights and expertise on where the market is and where it is going to go.

I look forward to welcoming you to this debt finance conference.

Stephen Mostyn-Williams
CEO, DebtXplained

Conference Topics and Presenters:

08:15 – 08:45 Coffee & Registration

08:50 Chairman’s Opening Remarks

09:00 Trends and outlook in European Leveraged Finance
Helier Paveley-Drage – Director, Leveraged Finance Advisory – Rothschild

• Introduction
• Key trends
• Outlook for 2014

Questions & Answers

09:35 Leveraged Loan Market – Battling The Bond Markets
Kristelle Maouad – Director – Leveraged Capital Markets – EMEA Loan Syndications – BNP Paribas

• Leveraged market status: is the bull back?
• Loans & Bonds: complementing or competing products?
• European vs. US loan market
• Liquidity update: the return of CLOs
• Recent deals
• Topical issues

Questions & Answers

10:10 Bond – New Directions For Bond Financing
Michael Marsh – Head of EMEA High Yield and Leveraged Loan Capital Markets – Goldman Sachs

• Review of 2013
• Primary market themes – innovation in high yield
• Outlook 2014

Questions & Answers

10:45 Morning Coffee & Networking Opportunity

11:05 Distressed Debt
Graham Martin – Partner – Global Leader Portfolio Solutions Group – KPMG LLP

• The Americans are here
• Hot sectors
• Hot countries
• Barriers in dealing with multiple-debtor-friendly jurisdictions

Questions & Answers

11:40 Debt Finance For The Middle Market
Owen Verrier Jones – Managing Director – Head of Mid-Market Origination, GE Capital Leveraged Finance
Michael Dennis – Managing Director – Ares Capital Europe

• What is Mid-Market & why it matters?
• Overview of financing options for the Mid-Market
• Changing providers of financing for the Mid-Market
• Unitranche structures and benefits

Questions & Answers

12:15 Convertible Bonds – Riding The Wave of Issuance
Steven Halperin – Managing Director – Co-Head of EMEA ECM Origination – Barclays Capital

• The case in favour – best of both worlds
• Understanding Sizing, Pricing, and Economics
• Features to Optimise issuance
• Review of recent deals

Questions & Answers

12:50 Lunch & Networking Opportunity

14:05 Infrastructure Financing – My Kingdom For Some Debt
Martin McCann – Head of Infrastructure, Mining and Commodities – Norton Rose Fulbright LLP

• Will the slow-down continue?
• Current Govt-led initiatives
• What types of deals are being financed?
• Are subsidised (green) projects still viable in light of changing sentiment?
• Are mini-perms here to stay?
• Can the bond markets ever pick up the slack?

Questions & Answers

14:40 Debt Restructuring
Tom Campbell – Senior Managing Director – The Blackstone Group

• Macroeconomic backdrop
• Key phases in the current restructuring cycle
• Key transactions – lessons learned, issues remaining

Questions & Answers

15:15 Afternoon Tea & Networking Opportunity

15:35 Retail Bond Market As A Financing Tool – Are They The Missing Link?
Michael Smith – Debt Capital Markets – Investec Bank plc

• Review of recent deals & trends
• Key challenges
• Can they fill the gap?
• What’s the future like?

Questions & Answers

16:10 Legal Issues In Bonds
Michael Dakin – Partner – Clifford Chance

• Exit consents (Assénagon v Anglo Irish Bank)
• Intercreditor Arrangements – the lastest LMA/AFME approach
• Enforcement and Restructuring – appointment of agents and process overview
• Portability – a review of its use in the market and recent transactions
• Margin Bonds – a potential new opportunity for minority acquisitions
• FATCA – the dog that didn’t bark?

Questions & Answers

16:45 Mezzanine & Junior Debt Outlook – Is The End Finally Nigh?
Chris Skinner – Partner – Debt Advisory - Deloitte

• Can Mezzanine recover its former glory?
• Will 2nd Lien return to Loan markets (a la the US market)?
• Will PIK return as investors move up the risk/reward curve?
• Will Unitranche help or hinder mezzanine

Questions & Answers

17:20 Chairman’s Closing Remarks

17:30 End of conference