Private equity takes the supersize option

Multi-billion dollar leveraged buyouts are back with a bang, spurred on by low funding costs in the loan market. But with high yield faltering, can private equity firms and their financiers stomach the risks, or could these deals be the distressed loans of tomorrow? Kathryn Tully reports.

From spin-off to buyout: How Sungard became a record-breaking deal

WHAT’S THE GUILTY secret that Wall Street corporate financiers don’t want to share? “Around here we say, ‘don’t tell anyone who buys leveraged loans that the high-yield market has backed off’,” jokes a senior US leveraged finance banker about his market.

The way things are going, it might soon be no laughing matter.

In March, the US high-yield market suffered its worst performance in three years. More than $3 billion of capital has flowed out of high-yield mutual funds in recent weeks.

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