If investor demand for junk bonds continues to weaken, less cash would be available to finance buyouts.

In the late 1980's, the bad loans were generally made to finance overpriced leveraged buyouts.

The result is cheap money, which has helped to finance both leveraged buyouts and payments to equity holders.

"A year ago we couldn't have done a $10 billion deal," said a senior banker who is active in financing leveraged buyouts.

The group specializes in putting together packages to finance leveraged buyouts.

Through the use of leverage, the capital could be used to finance buyouts totaling $30 billion or more.

Companies often finance such buyouts by incurring large debt.

It has reported problems with loans made to finance leveraged buyouts.

Commercial banks are also allocating billions of dollars to finance leveraged buyouts.

That implies that $250 billion to $300 billion is available to finance buyouts.