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鈥榊ou can look at any of the markets in Europe and the UK and we鈥檝e been from the peak of where that car is travelling all the way down the curve and that curve has been incredibly fast,鈥� said Shayle. 鈥業f you like to use an odd expression, most of the lending markets have taken speeding tickets on that deceleration coming down the yield curve in terms of returns. Now, it鈥檚 starting to pick up and it鈥檚 almost as if the rollercoaster car has travelled to the top and dropped to the bottom and is now starting that climb. But we don鈥檛 know yet if that climb is going to be a slow hump or another steep one. That鈥檚 probably the open question at the moment.鈥�

Fuelling the ride is intense competition in the market, according to Sascha Klaus, a board member of Hypothekenbank Frankfurt, a unit of Commerzbank. 鈥楥ompetition is extreme, particularly in Germany,鈥� he said. 鈥楾here is a lot of money to be invested by German banks. Risks are distributed widely in these banking systems. That鈥檚 why the spreads on financing are contracting more and more. LTVs have risen but not as much and as fast as I was worried they might a year ago. Banks have not forgotten the last cycle but I always raise my finger when people talk about 鈥渟till reasonable LTVs鈥�.鈥�

Debt funds are also contributing to the shifting lending landscape, according to the panelists at the briefing. However, one of the key factors differentiating debt funds from banks is where they each sit on the risk curve, according to Shayle. Most of the money that banks lend is sourced in treasury markets, other than their equity capital base, which is predominately for regulatory and shareholder purposes. Ultimately, banks borrow short and lend long. 鈥楽o what happens in a bank is that they have very volatile capital on the one side and very stable income-related investments on the other,鈥� said Shayle.

鈥楬owever, debt funds as they are constructed presently - closed-ended and on a fixed-return basis for their investors - are always fighting the currently downward pressure of the market in terms of returns on lending. What that forces debt funds to do is to move up the risk return curve in order to find the kind of returns that are compatible with their sources of finance. Subsequently, debt funds, such as my own or from one of my competitors in London, whether they鈥檙e lending in London or across Europe, tend to be looking at higher risk return categories.鈥�

Moreover, the fact that alternative lenders are still going strong has forced many in the industry to reevaluate their importance, according to Daniel Mair, a partner in Ernst & Young鈥檚 German restructuring practice: 鈥業 used to think there was no space for alternative lenders In Germany, because it is so over-banked, but if you look at quantitative data today you see that they have succeeded in the market and are gaining market share. Personally, I don鈥檛 see how they鈥檙e getting the returns for their investors but they are underwriting loans and becoming a significant part of the market. I think the party鈥檚 going to go on for a while.鈥�