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Cov-lite (or "covenant light") is financial jargon for loan agreements that do not contain the usual protective covenants for the benefit of the lending party. Although traditionally banks have insisted on a wide range of covenants that allow them to intervene if the financial position of the borrower or the value of underlying assets deteriorates, around 2006 the increasing strength of private equity firms and the decreasing opportunities for traditional corporate loans made by banks fueled something of a "race to the bottom", with syndicates of banks competing with each other to offer ever less invasive terms to borrowers in relation to leveraged buy-outs. In the wake of the Financial crisis of 2007–08 growth in the use of cov-lite loans stalled, but more recently they have increased in popularity again. Cov-lite lending is seen as riskier because it removes the early warning signs lenders would otherwise receive through traditional covenants. Against this, it has been countered that cov-lite loans simply reflect changes in bargaining power between borrowers and lenders, following from the increased sophistication in the loans market where risk is quickly dispersed through syndication or credit derivatives. ==Covenants== Practices vary, but characteristically cov-lite loans remove the requirement to report and maintain loan to value, gearing, and EBITDA ratios. More aggressively negotiated cov-lite loans might also remove * events of default relating to "material adverse change" of the position of the borrower * requirement to deliver annual accounts to the banks * restrictions on other third party debt * restrictions on negative pledges * requirements for bank approval to change the form of the debtor group's business 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cov-lite」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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