...Fitch Ratings held its annual European ABCP conference on 11 March 2009. The conference was well attended (over 100 attendees), including a mix of issuers, investors and dealers. As well as touching on the events of the past 18 months, panels discussed the future of ABCP, how issuers are responding to change, and investors' views and perspectives. Fitch published its annual Outlook for Global ABCP in February 2009 and many of the opinions in this report were discussed at its European ABCP conference. European ABCP outstandings continued to decline to approximately USD52bn as at end-March, equating to a decline of approximately 81% from the peak of July 2007. European ABCP growth for the remainder of 2009 is expected to be minimal. The credit outlook is stable but many European programmes have the capability to issue in both USCP and ABECP markets. Given the low activity in the ABECP market, European issuers have turned their attention to issuance activity in the US ABCP market. The key...
|
