Reply #12: Morning Oz, Demeter

[TalkingDog]

Glad to see you back safe and sound. YOU ROCK! does not begin to express our newly blossomed Demeter worship (ha! pagans that we are) here on the SMW. Me, I would've fainted from stage fright.....

And now for something completely different (that is completely the same)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=at6oLFppL7G0&refer=exclusive

The freeze in leveraged buyouts is slashing fees for investment banks by more than 75 percent as Blackstone Group LP and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the industry's two biggest firms, put takeover plans on hold.

Private-equity companies paid $1 billion to securities firms in the U.S. and Europe during the first quarter, down from $4.3 billion a year earlier, data compiled by New York-based research firm Freeman & Co. and Thomson Financial show. Revenue from loan underwriting plunged more than 91 percent, and fees from advising on takeovers dropped 51 percent.

The crisis in the debt markets that started with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. shows no sign of abating. No buyout firm has announced a deal worth more than $3.1 billion since borrowing costs started climbing last July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Banks are now in the process of clearing about $230 billion of loans that they committed to finance acquisitions, sapping their interest in funding new deals.

``Until the banks sort out their credit issues, there will be a follow-on impact on the larger M&A deals,'' said Bruce Barclay, a London-based managing director at Advent International Corp., which this week raised 6.6 billion euros ($10.4 billion) for LBOs.