Let’s now turn to post-crisis market conditions, which exhibit both similarities and differences compared with the pre-crisis period. Borrowing through leveraged loans by speculative-grade companies has been brisk since 2010, with about $ billion of institutional loans now outstanding (figure 8). Over much of the post-crisis low interest rate period, demand for higher-yielding assets has been very strong, often outstripping supply.
The second point I wanted to make was regarding our conflict of interest policy. The sign-off we all do here is important. Not because anything wrong is going on, but because our policy helps ensure that we don’t run into these kinds of conflicts. So we do have, as an organisation, a few things in place beyond the Compass.