Life after the crisis, says Bill Gross of Pimco, will be characterised by DDR: deleveraging, deglobalisation and reregulation. There is evidence aplenty of the first and last. And of the second, there are few better illustrations than the Asian loan market.
In the years before the credit bust, western lenders swarmed all over Asia. Heads of corporate and investment banking would knock on the doors of any finance director who would listen. They may have known next to nothing about the business, but the bankers would be safe in the knowledge that their sales pitch was backed by a vast, cheaply funded balance sheet.
Now they are beating a retreat. Three years ago, among the top 20 arrangers of syndicated loans in Asia, excluding Japan and Australia, non-Asian banks had a 29 per cent market share. So far this year, their share is 7 per cent. Five non-Asian banks were in the top 10 in 2006; now there are two. In league table terms, BNP Paribas, Citigroup and HSBC have slipped the most.