The speed in which the heat has gone from the leverage finance market has left most participants reeling. Indeed, had IFR held this roundtable prior to the summer then the conclusions would have been very different. Before the summer the position of the private equity industry looked unassailable. Dubbed the new masters of the universe, the industry’s ability to raise new debt meant that none but the largest of listed corporates were safe from PEs predatory advances. In the US buyouts in the ten

IFR: Assuming a buyout of a €1bn is possible, in terms of leverage what structure is now required? Nick Jansa: It is impossible to say. You could find deals ranging what from five to 12 times in the bull market. You just look at everything on a case by case basis. It is impossible to say things have moved by one turn, two turns or three turns. It entirely depends on what the individual credit is and what you think is a very, very safe investment for an institutional investor or for a bank. John

IFR: You've brought up a point about secondary. Prior to ProSieben, the market seemed to have been permanently bid at par or 101.5. How important is the secondary market? How closely do investors and banks look at pricing and how does it impact on the high-yield space? If covenants have disappeared from loans, surely the two markets would merge? Eric Capp: Being a high-yield person, the disappearance of covenants in the leveraged loans space was purely a pricing and structure issue. Are investor

IFR: Let's begin by looking at the events over the summer that caused the wholesale closure of the global leverage space? Eric Capp (RBS): The theme that has been used is rolling contagion, which had its genesis in the fallout in the sub-prime market. And I think it is interesting that the market exhibited some unusual behaviour this summer, at least in the leveraged loan market, where formerly the paradigm was emerging market equities fell over and western equities would follow, there would be

John Foy - Prudential M&G John Foy joined Prudential M&G in November 2004 as Head of Leveraged Finance. John spent 21 years at NatWest, the last 12 years of which were spent in the Bank’s Leveraged Finance team, being made Managing Director of that business in 1999.  In 2000 John established a new market entrant in the leveraged finance arena, Heller Financial Limited which was bought by GE Capital in 2001 and where John worked until April 2004. John held the position of Managing Directo