The credit boom is on borrowed time

In 2008, US subprime mortgage loans triggered the financial crisis. Now, worried eyes are turning to record high corporate debt.

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India's corporate debt load looks precarious
(Image credit: 2018 Hindustan Times)

"When credit starts looking dicey, investors quickly pay attention and for good reason," says Michael Mackenzie in the Financial Times. In 2008, US subprime mortgage loans triggered the financial crisis. Now, eyes are turning to record high corporate debt, with investors fearful that we are heading into a "typical late-cycle period where the excesses of corporate borrowing come home to roost". Already, 2018 is proving to be the worst year for investors in both investment-grade and high-yield ("junk") debt since 2008, with total returns negative for the year.

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Marina Gerner is an award-winning journalist and columnist who has written for the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist, The Guardian and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.

Marina is also an adjunct professor at the NYU Stern School of Business at their London campus, and has a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Her first book, The Vagina Business, deals with the potential of “femtech” to transform women’s lives, and will be published by Icon Books in September 2024.

Marina is trilingual and lives in London.