Financing Europe's LBO boom

Leveraged buy-outs (LBOs) have become one of the hottest areas of European investment banking, fuelled by the availability of increasingly varied and cost effective forms of financing. Banks have been rushing to put acquisition finance teams in place, attracted by the high returns on offer. Institutional investors, particularly from the US, are creating a new capital pool for senior debt financing. High yield bonds are starting to take off in Europe. Mezzanine is still plentiful. And the supply of private equity and venture capital is at an all-time high. Some financiers already fear that the LBO market may be overheating. At a time when asset prices are so high, and the competition for deals so intense, they believe that the market risks a repetition of its collapse in the early 1990s unless the currently hectic pace of activity slows down. But others say things are different this time -- that the economic outlook in Europe is much better than in the late 1980s; that lenders and investors are much more selective about the deals they will do, and how they structure them; that the development of new and more sophisticated forms of financing has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the LBO market; and that the long term prospects are bright. It is too early to tell who is right. But, one way or another, it is going to be an exciting ride in the leveraged finance market. Charles Olivier reports.