A third reason for the concentration of private placement lending is the concentrated structure of the insurance and related markets. At the end of 1991, the twenty largest life insurance companies held 51 percent of industry assets. Because these companies have a large volume of funds to invest, their domination of the private placement market is natural. A final reason for concentration is that large lenders have an advantage in obtaining private placements because their large volume of investments permits them to participate in the market continuously, giving them up-to-date information about the state of the market (see part 2, section 2).

Apart from the statistics shown in table 7 and some data for the life insurance industry that are discussed in parts 2 and 3, little detailed information on investors in private placements is publicly available. Consequently, much of our discussion is based on interviews with market participants. To summarize this information, life insurers buy a broad spectrum of private placements, but many of them focus on senior, unsecured debt. Finance companies are also said to be significant buyers of private debt, but they tend to specialize in highrisk investments and, consequently, require that borrowers provide collateral and equity kickers, such as warrants or convertible bonds. They have developed special expertise in due diligence and monitoring involving collateral and equity features. Though commercial banks have the capabilities for credit analysis, they are not significant buyers of private placements, probably because their short-term, liquid, floating-rate liabilities are not well matched by private bonds. Regulatory and other restraints prevent or discourage major investors in public bonds, such as most pension funds and mutual funds, from investing heavily in private bonds.

Dealscan Database Manual Pdf

Type of lenderShare of volume
Life insurance companies
Pension, endowment, and trust funds
Finance companies
Mutual funds
Casualty insurance companies
U.S. commercial banks
Foreign banks
U.S. savings and loans and mutual
savings banks
U.S. investment banks
Unknown

82.6
1.7
1.4
.7
1.4
3.3
3.6
.7
.9
3.7

  1. The sample was drawn from Loan Pricing Corporation's Dealscan database. An effort was made to include only traditional private placements, but some Rule 144A issues may have been included.
    The shares shown in the table should be viewed as rough approximations for several reasons. First, the sample may not represent the population of private placements issued during the period. Second, the sample includes some issues that appear to be bank loans, not traditional private placements, in effect. Removal of these would reduce the shares of U.S. and foreign banks and of U.S. savings and loans and mutual savings banks. Finally, the sample period is unusual in that it involves a severe credit crunch in the below-investment-grade segment of the market (described in part 3, section 1). Because purchases of private placements by finance companies have traditionally been below-investment-grade securities, the low share of finance companies may not be representative of other periods nor of their current share of all outstanding placements. Thus, the types of lender are listed in table 7 in the order of importance as indicated by anecdotal evidence, not in the order of their share of the sample.

  2. Though a lender with floating-rate liabilities might control interest rate risk with swaps or other hedges, one with short-term liabilities might find the risks associated with major investments in long-term, illiquid assets difficult to manage.

Life Insurance Companies

Dealscan Database Manual Online

Click here to download The Economics of the Private Market in .pdf format