Omicron hits leveraged finance market

Send us Fan MailA fertile hunting ground for signs of major shocks affecting capital markets is invariably the parts where the worst rated credits are — where risk is deemed to be highest. That typically means the emerging markets and, as was our subject this week, the leveraged finance market where the most indebted companies raise debt capital.The recently detected Omicron variant of the coronavirus is already having an effect on the latter. Three huge financing deals that have been in the pipeline for months are now quite likely to be shoved into next year because investor confidence has ebbed away.Typically, banks with huge leveraged finance debt positions to sell don’t like holding on to them over Christmas, but that now looks like it will be the case. On the podcast this week, we examine how they have ended up in this situation and what the consequences are likely to be.Meanwhile, we also discuss credit investment firm Alcentra, which has been put up for sale by its owner, BNY Mellon.