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Full partnership is not the end of the road. As we develop more trust with our partners, as we achieve predetermined worthwhile goals, as our desire to benefit personally from the arrangement is sustained, our commitment deepens. Partnerships can revert to earlier stages— back to reassessing needs and redefining what we want from our partners.

Just as we reestablish a Norm stage following a return to the Storm stage, we can recommit to a partnership that we have chosen to redirect. In both cases, the establishment of trust sustains the partners through setbacks and potential turmoil.

Our commitment to a full partnership, therefore, is not a final destination, but an ongoing process. The relationships are performing, the synergies are generating mutual benefits, and the partnership becomes increasingly well-established. Sustaining its growth is the challenge. At this point we may want to do some strategic planning. This planning can be done within the boundaries of the partnership to create a mutual future, or it can be done in a larger arena. Many companies present organizationwide “future search” conferences where they invite their partners to try to envision what their partnerships will look like five or ten or twenty years down the road. The more mutual the planning, the deeper the relationship. Trust is a catalyst propelling people into the creative zone.

Direction of equity markets. The current state of the equity market has an effect on default rates because it determines asset values, investor’s sentiment towards risky assets and the accessibility of capital markets for companies.

Age effect of bonds. The likelihood of payment default by a bond issuer can change with decreasing time to maturity. At the time of issuance, the new issuer has abundant cash and payment default is easily avoided. In addition it is quite common to put some restricted cash from the issuance into an account to cover the first 3–4 coupon payments. Over time the “hazard rate” grows as cash reserves gained through the bond issue are used. The critical period is reached when the success of the firm is least certain and the hazard rate is at a maximum. However, after corporate plans are successfully implemented and sufficient profit has been generated to offset debt, the critical phase is past and the likelihood of payment default declines rapidly. Several empirical studies show that the critical time after first issues is approximately 3 years after issuance for B-rated bonds and climbs to approximately 4 years for BB-rated bonds. The amount of defaults drops significantly after the critical period of the first 3–4 years is survived by the issuer.

Quality of new issue volume. An important measure for the quality of the high-yield market is the percentage amount of new issuance being used to refinance debt. During periods of balance sheet repair (1990–93 and 2001–03) the percentage of total new issue volume will reach high levels.

Overall, the analysis suggests that credit spreads are highly correlated with the business cycle and that there is a leverage cycle that is closely related to macroeconomic activity variables. While carry-driven strategies may work most of the time, a thorough understanding of the leverage cycle helps to anticipate a harsh credit environment, even before it is reflected in GDP growth and equity performance. As the years 1997–2000 have shown, information from the equity markets is clearly not sufficient as an indicator of business and financial risks in the corporate sector. Most companies go through a regular cycle of leveraging and deleveraging, which is related to the profit and Capex cycle. Especially trends in mergers and acquisitions have a significant impact on the performance of credit markets.

Consequently, the concept of “safe” and “risky” companies loses its allure. Companies from sectors like utilities or noncyclical services that are considered safe today may increase leverage and be more risky tomorrow. On the other hand, highly leveraged companies may decide to deleverage and thus lower their business risk, like the European telecom sector in 2002 and 2003. Although the profit cycle is more pronounced in cyclical sectors, a credit cycle may be observed across virtually all industries. Credit markets react to this dynamic process through spread tightening and spread widening, thus causing investors mark-to-market profits or losses.