Emerging nations -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- have witnessed a 21 per cent decline in the loans gathered by companies to about $40 billion in the first three months this year, a latest report says.
Companies from the BRIC region mobilised $39.8 billion through 66 syndicated loan deals till March as against $50.7 billion raised by way of 82 deals during the same period last year, according to data complied by global consulting firm Dealogic.
The average deal size also fell to $603.6 million from $618.5 million.
Syndicated loans are large financing facilities granted to a borrower by a group of financial institutions who share the lending risk between them. They combine the commercial financing relationship between a bank and its client with the features of market traded debt.
Meanwhile, loans gathered by Chinese corporates trebled to $10.9 billion in the first three months this year against $2.4 billion in the same period last year.
However, Russian firms lending declined 48 per cent to nearly $19 billion, while it was $36.5 billion in the previous year.
India's SBI Capital Markets has been ranked second among the top 10 financial institutions for arranging syndicated loans in the region. It accounts for over 10 per cent of the syndicated loan market with deals of over $4.1 billion till March this year.
Bank of China topped the BRIC bookrunner rankings in the first quarter of 2008 with $9.1 billion, cornering about 23 per cent of the market in the region. Further, US-based Citi ranked third by providing loans to the tune of over $1 billion in the first quarter of 2008.
