A dramatic turnaround in circumstances has played out in the leveraged finance sector over the past few months. The opening weeks of 2020 saw record levels of issuance, with more than $233bn-worth of high-yield bonds and leveraged loans issued in the US in January and February, and more than $53bn in European markets, according to Dealogic. Hence US issuance more than doubled year on year, and European issuance more than trebled, compared with 2019.
There was a lot of opportunistic business, with issuers taking advantage of favourable market conditions to finance debt re-pricings and dividend recapitalisations, as well as some mergers and acquisitions.
