The Eurozone debt crisis is starting to impact the markets on which private equity is reliant for financing its investments, threatening the fragile recovery of the buyout industry.

The leveraged loan markets have suffered three weeks of consecutive drops in pricing, according to data provider S&P LCD, the first time that this has happened since late 2008. The secondaries market for European leveraged loan flow names, the most actively traded debt, fell from above 97% three weeks ago to 95.38% of face value, S&P LCD said. However, the market is still much higher than at the end of 2008, when leveraged loan flow names fell to about 60% of face value.