The insurancespace saw debt offerings increase in value year over year in the first quarter whilethe segment continues to undergo a slowdown in common equity offerings.
Insuranceunderwriters and brokers recorded 20 debt offerings in the first quarter with aggregatedeal value of $17.01 billion. This compares with 26 offerings in the first quarterof 2015 with $11.95 billion in aggregate deal value and 16 offerings in the fourthquarter of 2014 with aggregate deal value of $10.78 billion, according to SNL Financialdata.
Basedon deal value, Wells Fargo & Co.'sWells Fargo Securities LLCtopped SNL's insurance debt offerings league table with total deal credit of $4.77billion from 13 offerings.
The insurancesegment saw one preferred equity offering during the quarter with an offering size,including overallotments, of $143.8 million, compared with two offerings in thefirst quarter of 2015 with an aggregate deal value of $347.5 million.
The firstquarter marked the second straight quarter in which the insurance space saw no commonequity offerings. In the first quarter of 2015, the sector saw only one IPO witha deal value of $116.4 million and four common stock offerings with aggregate dealvalue of $1.70 billion.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the marketing name for the globalbanking and global markets business of Bankof America Corp.
SNL Financial is an offering ofS&P Global Market Intelligence.