most companies also have hard assets, e.g. inventory, real estate, IP, equipment, etc. If you're ok with paying 15x P/E which is the average S&P P/E, then 7x leverage isn't so bad...
Although the companies with these levered loans are a lot smaller than S&P 500 companies.
Leverage agaisnt hard assets != leverage agaisnt equity (which you were talking about), and we're talking about individual companies P/E. Everyone cannot hold an index (if everyone does so, there is no incentive to weed out bad companies), some of which are good about not including neg eps companies in the P/E caluclation [0].
no it's not, and I know the two are different definitions. However, what I'm saying is that a 7x 1st lien leveraged loan against a company that is trading at 14x P/E is essential 50% the market value of the company. Of course, the hard assets of the company is probably a lot less than that.
Although the companies with these levered loans are a lot smaller than S&P 500 companies.