What became clear in 2005 was the number of options an institution looking to raise capital could use. There can be no clearer example than that of the leveraged buyout of retailer Toys R Us, which used a combination of asset-backed, real estate backed and CMBS markets to achieve lower overall financing costs for its sponsors than a traditional bank and bond deal could have provided. Consider also the LBO of Hertz, where the use of ABS allowed the winning sponsors to bid a higher price for their target that the original business plan allowed.
It was also the year that the corporate hybrid came of age, and that emerging markets showed they could be as innovative as their more established peers.
Coverage by Alex Chambers, Clive Horwood, Peter Koh, Chris Leahy, Kathryn Tully, Kathryn Wells, Simon Boughey and Felix Salmon