Large Loans Are Highlight of Mediocre Asian Deal Environment

By Cynthia Koons

One thing stands out in Asia's uninspiring deal landscape this year: big loans.

Acquisition financing in Asia, excluding Japan, has hit its highest year-to-date level since 2007, up 46% from the same period last year, according to Dealogic. That is despite acquisitions rising only 3% this year after a slowdown in recent months.

Now as investors pull cash out of Asia in the belief that the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon start winding down its monetary stimulus, some people are saying this wave of debt-fueled deals could soon end.

"I don't think I would stand and wave my hand at this point in time and say, 'This is the new normal'," said Keith Pogson, a partner in Ernst & Young's Asian-Pacific financial-services office.

He said this year's leveraged deals were successful because of low interest rates and good acquisition targets. "There's not going to be an unending appetite for buyers, sellers and funders for these deals," Mr. Pogson said. "There's a window. I don't know how long this window is going to be."

Bankers say they don't expect such lending to end quickly, but banks might soon begin offering less leverage on deals, which would slow already lackluster deal making.

"What you are seeing now is what I think is the back end of what you could call a self-contained bubble within the Asian bank and bond markets," said Lyndon Hsu, head of leverage and acquisition finance for HSBC Holdings PLC in the Asian-Pacific region. He said he expects the market to cool over the next six months, following a tightening in lending markets in the U.S. and Europe.

A few large deals have accounted for the bulk of the lending this year, which has totaled more than $20 billion. Thai tycoon Dhanin Chearavanont's CP All PCL (CPALL.TH) took out a $6 billion loan to buy Siam Makro PCL, a local discount-store chain, in April in a deal funded almost entirely by debt. Chinese energy giant Cnooc Ltd. (0883.HK) got a loan of similar size to help fund its $15.1 billion purchase of Canada's Nexen Inc. (005720.SE), one of the country's largest energy producers, in a deal that closed in February. In both deals, a large number of banks were eager to offer loans.

Dealogic's data don't include some of the biggest loans made this year, either because of the way the deals were structured or because they haven't closed yet.

Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., for example, borrowed around $7.9 billion to fund its $4.7 billion bid for U.S. pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD), with Morgan Stanley and Bank of China Ltd. splitting the lending. When Mr. Dhanin's CP Group needed to fund a $9.4 billion purchase of HSBC's stake in Chinese insurer Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. (000001.SZ), UBS stepped in with a loan to support the bulk of the purchase.

The surge in big loans has been driven by banks' need to generate returns at a time when they are sitting on lots of cash but facing weak markets for deals, IPOs and trading. "Bankers and organizations still need to pay salaries and hence there's more interest in doing leverage than we've seen in a long time," Mr. Pogson said.

Banks' willingness to take out their checkbooks to please big clients carries risks, especially if the targets of deals don't live up to expectations.

"I think the banks are being more aggressive--it's a risk, yes," said Eka Nirapathpongporn, a managing director at Lazard in Hong Kong. "But these guys are banking on the relationship with all these growing families. I think they're banking on the fact that these family businesses and empires are going to continue to get stronger."

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said the bank doesn't comment on specific deals. UBS declined to comment.

There are reasons to believe that the family empires will continue to grow. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, aims to create a regional free-trade bloc by 2015, which should allow freer movement of labor, goods and services. That should create bigger markets for conglomerates that are bulking up across the region, which is home to around 600 million people.

Family-controlled Thai companies have led the way this year, completing $19.8 billion in overseas acquisitions, more than triple the amount during the same period a year ago, according to Dealogic.

In addition to Mr. Dhanin's investments in Ping An and Siam Makro, Thai tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi's Thai Beverage PCL (Y92.SG) succeeded with an $11.2 billion bid for Singaporean conglomerate Fraser & Neave Ltd. (F99.SG), funded by a $9.2 billion jumbo loan from DBS Group Holdings Ltd. and UOB.

Write to Cynthia Koons at [e-mail]

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