Jeremy Warner - Debt crisis: a $46 trillion problem comes sweeping in
June 4, 2012 Just as you thought things couldn't get any worse, credit markets are about to be hit by a veritable tsunami of maturing corporate debt. Standard & Poor's estimates that companies in Europe, the US and the major Asian economies require a combination of refinancing and new money to fund growth over the next four years of between $43 trillion and $46 trillion. The wall of maturing debt is unprecedented, raising the prospect of further, extreme difficulties in credit markets.
With the eurozone debt crisis still at full throttle, the Chinese economy slowing fast and a still tepid US recovery, it's not clear that the banking system is in any position to deal with this incoming wave of demand.
As if the refinancing problem wasn't already challenging enough, into it all stumbles the European commissioner for internal markets, Michel Barnier, to prove the old saw that there is no mess quite so bad that official intervention won't make even worse.
A traditionalist French socialist by background, Mr Barnier positively revels in his job as the EU's top financial services regulator. In a recent interview, he said that he liked the term "shareholder spring" because it implied "a regulation spring, a rule making spring". Yes, indeed, Mr Barnier likes very much rules and regulations. He wants to regulate everything from pay to solvency. The financial crisis has given him a wide open canvass on which to paint.
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