2025 was anything but straightforward.

Sources speaking with 9fin described it as a year of “mini-cycles”, ranging from opportunistic repricings, dividends, and mega-deal LBOs — all the way to tariff-induced market shutdowns.

“You usually wouldn’t see all of those events in one year,” a banker said.

European high yield saw one of the strongest issuance environments of the decade, but with notable interruptions — a hesitant February and April gave way to a powerful summer rebound.

With macro headlines across tariffs and AI periodically forcing lenders to reprice risk, strong technicals quickly dragged spreads tighter and reopened the market, with market sentiment firmly set to risk-on.

“It’s been an extraordinary year, starting with real optimism — but then there was real pessimism with Liberation Day,” a second banker said. “The market demonstrated real resilience.”

Closing out December, 2025 volumes reached €132.1bn in equivalent terms, up 8.8% year-on-year with 263 tranches placed across 190 issuers, eclipsed only by the zero-interest-rate-policy surge of 2021 at €151.5bn.