Taiwan Sees Lowest Syndicated Loan Value of Asia's 4 Little Dragons in First 3 Quarters

Taipei, Nov. 28, 2012 (CENS)—Asia's syndicated loan value showed a sizable annual drop of 26% to US$199 billion in the first three quarters and the number of cases declined to 676 from 845, according to the statistics released by Thomson Reuters Basis Point Corp., a global provider of information on the syndicated loan and high yield bond markets.

Among the countries and regions in the area, Thailand saw the largest growth of near 120% in terms of value and Taiwan experienced the largest decrease of Asia's four little dragons

In the third quarter alone, Asia's syndicated loan reached US$62.35 billion, tumbled by 34% from that of the same quarter of last year. Insiders attributed the fall to the continued global economic downturn that dampened the investing willingness of enterprises in Asia, not to mention that lower lending rates were available in other financial instruments, for instance, corporate bonds.

Nevertheless, the enterprises in Asia have seemed to be more active than their counterparts in Europe and the United States in recent years as they have aggressively merged and acquired companies globally that has hence activated the syndicated loan market.

Among the countries in Asia, those witnessing positive growth in syndicated loan value in the first three quarters included Thailand, Brunei, Bangladesh, Mongolia, China, and New Zealand; while Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Taiwan all posted a decline, with Vietnam experiencing a whopping shrinkage of 80%.

However, the syndicated loan market in China has recently been growing very rapidly and witnessed a sharp annual growth of 65% to US$37 billion in syndicated loans in the first three quarters. In the same period, Japan's syndicated loans reached US$242 billion, higher than the combined value of other Asian economies and Japanese enterprises usually get loans from Japanese banks.

Taiwan's Top-7 Syndicated Lenders in First 3 quarters of 2012
Bank	Loan value (US$B)
Bank of Taiwan	4.287
Mega International Commercial Bank	2.815
Taiwan Business Bank	2.076
Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank	1.628
Land Bank of Taiwan	1.353
First Commercial Bank	1.286
Chinatrust Commercial Bank	1.265

Source: Thomas Reuters Basis Point Corp.