High-yield issues to gain from recovery

Only established in 1998, we were told the high-yield market in Europe was booming by the end of 1999. Investment banks were forecasting years of stellar growth in issuance and asset managers were launching or planning to launch a plethora of high- income products aimed at retail and institutional markets. This growth premise was based on the US model that had shown a very favourable risk/reward trade-off relative to other asset classes. A mere three years on and the viability of the asset class is already being called into question following successive years of poor returns. ...