Roundtable participants

摘要

DOMINIK MÜLLER, COMMERZBANK: The German loan market was characterised by a decent level of activity in 2017 although market volumes of almost €100bn by the end of the third quarter were 30% less than volumes in the same period of 2016. However if you deduct last year's €57bn Bayer/Monsanto acquisition financing, volumes in Germany are actually 20% higher than last year. Where does this growth come from? Looking at overall market maturity profiles at the end of last year, you wouldn't have anticipated much activity in 2017. But contrary to expectations, a variety of companies came to the market from across the corporate spectrum: multinationals, DAX 30 companies as well as companies from the Mittelstand segment. Particularly in the Mittelstand area, there were a lot of small-cap companies tapping the market for the first time. We had already seen this over the last few years but it continued into 2017. Those transactions don't add much to overall market volumes but they do obviously increase the number of transactions. We also saw a decent number of medium-sized acquisition financings. In summary, the market was much better than anticipated by many market participants at the beginning of this year but far weaker than in top years.