Raising €50bn ($67bn) from Europe's credit markets would be no obstacle to a leveraged buyout, but other factors - in particular an inability to communicate a deal's benefits to the region's politicians and trade unions - provide the bottleneck to the size of LBOs, according to a senior banker.

Hamish Buckland, co-head of leveraged finance at JP Morgan, told Reuters at its Hedge Fund and Private Equity Summit in London yesterday that deals of such size were most likely to come in the media and consumer good sectors where cash flows are healthy and reliable.