An article published in the Financial Times on 15 April, 2024, looking at ballooning leverage and excessive financial engineering being among the unnerving parallels with the 2008 financial crisis, and in particular the case of the parent company of Thames Water which recently defaulted on a £400mn bond, refers to a recent op-ed by Frédéric Blanc-Brude, chief executive of Scientific Infra & Private Assets on the use of invalid asset pricing models:

“To compound the stretched financing, the assets they are backing have been artificially overvalued, according to Frédéric Blanc-Brude of data provider Scientific Infra & Private Assets, in much the same way that illiquid securities were overvalued on bank balance sheets.”

Read the full coverage here.