Until this week, few outside of the esoteric world of leveraged finance had even heard the term "cov-lite", but after star fund manager Anthony Bolton's speech on leaving Fidelity, the words are in danger of becoming an iconic catchphase for the peak, or near-peak, of an over-exuberant buy-out boom.

Mr Bolton said his private equity contacts could not believe some of the loan deals they are getting and he added that this phenomenon would be destabilising to markets generally. "It is only a question of when rather than if [things go wrong]," he said.