Capital markets: Bond-financed buyouts raise risk concerns

In a month when JPMorgan announced the largest ever loan to back an acquisition – its sole $20 billion bridge facility for AT&T’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile USA – it seems slightly perverse to be focusing on the bond market’s role in driving M&A volumes. But despite headline loans such as that for the AT&T deal, the bond market is taking an ever more important role in this market – particularly lower down the credit spectrum.