London’s banking industry is playing it cool. It is more than a month since the Bank of England decided not to place restrictions on its lending to industries such as private equity, but there is no evidence of wild excesses in response.

That does not mean the industry was not greatly relieved that the Bank did not act on its review of leveraged loans - a feature of most private equity deals, by which a company being bought by a private equity firm provides part of the finance by taking out a loan. The Bank was concerned that multiples on such loans - the ratio of the loan to the company's earnings - were rising to levels that could cause systemic risk.