Thirteen corporate deals, worth $46bn (€34bn), have been pulled in the past fortnight, according to a fixed income manager at Baring Asset Management. No such deals were pulled in the whole of last year.

Forty-six corporate loan and bond deals have been postponed or reduced in size in the past month, worth a total of $60bn. That represents the total amount of acquisition debt that banks have tried, and failed, to get off their balance sheets, manager Toby Nangle said.