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Credit Suisse
Time will tell whether the leveraged finance market of the past 12 months has been a bubble that will burst painfully for over-leveraged companies and unwise investors. Certainly, financial sponsors have pushed their banks beyond any previous boundaries to pile up large amounts of low-cost debt, including at the holding company level with minimal claims for its providers on cash-generating operating assets. Investors, far from resisting, have been chasing yield. Underwriters face the task of executing large and extreme transactions in markets prone to periodic bouts of nerves and indeed incredulity. Credit Suisse wins this year’s award as the world’s best leveraged finance house for its ability to execute market-leading deals in all manner of high-yield bond and leveraged loan formats in the two largest markets of the US and Europe as well as in Asia. Its distribution strength has been to the fore as well as its tried and tested business model. It was the first bank to merge its leveraged bank loan and high-yield bond teams back in 1999. Capital markets teams, originators and sales and trading teams are paid out of a single bonus pool, tying all to the fortunes of each part of the business.