TSL Feature Articles

When documenting an ABL facility alongside a separate term loan, borrowers and financial sponsors increasingly request that the ABL credit agreement be drafted to essentially match material terms of the term loan agreement. This understandable desire for conformity often overshadows fundamental differences between ABL and term loan facilities and can create significant issues for ABL lenders. The goal from the ABL lender’s perspective should be to understand the tradeoffs involved and provide a level of functional conformity in principal terms, while maintaining customary availability-based metrics and liquidity protections of ABL loan documentation which are often absent or inadequately covered in term loan documentation.

In this installment of our series of executive interviews, Charlie Perer sits with Tim Stute to understand his views on the ABL industry, consolidation, new trends including specialization and state of the M&A market, among other things.

Meredith Coffey of LSTA provides readers with an update on the LIBOR transition.

1. When is LIBOR ending?

   The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) – the regulator of the ICE Benchmark Administration, the administrator of LIBOR – has said that all sterling, Swiss franc, euro and Japanese yen LIBOR settings will cease or no longer be representative after year-end 2021. The FCA also said that the settings for one-week and two-month USD LIBOR will also cease or will be non-representative after year-end 2021. The remaining USD LIBOR tenors will cease or be non-representative after June 30, 2023. Importantly, while USD LIBOR will continue to exist after the end of 2021, this is only for pre-existing “legacy” contracts. The U.S. banking regulators have said that banks should not originate new LIBOR contracts after the end of 2021.

Nneoma Maduike, member of SFNet’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusiveness Committee interviews Anthony C. Hood, PhD, executive vice president and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer of First Horizon National Corp. Dr. Hood is responsible for cultivating and expanding First Horizon’s strategic leadership in developing and implementing programs and initiatives that advance the Company’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.