Mid-caps’ moment arrives

With banks and sovereigns tainted by crises, bank lending capacity increasingly constrained by deleveraging and Basel III, and blue-chips amply pre-funded, the mid-cap moment has finally arrived in international debt capital markets. Impelled by the search for yield, European buyers’ appetite for credit has suddenly overtaken the US — accommodating unrated debt, renminbi issues and non-European borrowers. Julian Lewis reports.