Macy itself might by now have been deemed a winner had it gone through just one highly leveraged transaction, rather than two.

Two years later, he paid $183 million for John Wanamaker in another highly leveraged transaction.

"This isn't the friendliest of markets for leveraged transactions."

Their wages aren't set by the labour market but in terms of the scrape off what are leveraged transactions.

The 7-to-0 decision eliminates the definition of certain loans now called highly leveraged transactions, which banks issued in the 1980's.

The gain, however, was more than offset by lower operating results in highly leveraged transactions and commercial real estate businesses.

On that basis, a leveraged transaction would seem to make sense.

Many regional banks, for example, have said the average size of their highly leveraged transactions was below $10 million.

Bankers were unable to say immediately how much of their business is considered highly leveraged transactions under the new definition.

Instead, as banks and other lenders have cut back on capital for highly leveraged transactions, the market has largely been left to American telephone companies.