Leverage - the paying down of debt

With one person every four minutes declared bankrupt and one in 33 workers estimated to be unemployed by the year end, companies are shifting strategies towards debt minimisation

We are all adjusting to a ‘new normal’. For most of us, this essentially means reaping the consequences of years of overconsumption, overborrowing and undersaving. Quite simply, society has binged on huge levels of debt that will take years to work through, and this process has only just begun. In the US, average household debt now stands at about 130% of disposable income; in China, a forced ‘lending and spending’ strategy has pushed loan expansion to a massive 45% of GDP; in Europe, Government debt is at a 33-year high; and here in the UK, total UK personal debt at the end of July stoo...