Lenders to highly indebted companies are making many of the same mistakes that undermined the US subprime mortgage market, suggesting that leveraged loans will become “tomorrow’s problem”, says the chief executive of BlackRock, the $1,000bn-plus fund management group.

The comments from Larry Fink highlight the rising debt levels, falling risk premiums and loosening standards in loans made to leveraged buy-out vehicles and other junk-rated groups.