The big risk for public equities right now is that earnings will fall off a cliff (declines of a third are conceivable). On this subject companies owned by private equity are deafeningly silent. The most actively traded European leveraged loans are priced at about 90 per cent of face value, implying that default risk has jumped. Still, the omerta that governs the bulk of private equity-owned companies (only 15 per cent of loans have a public credit rating) seems likely to become stricter as things gets worse.