The maximum amortisation period for a mortgage will now be 25 years, down from 30.

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If they agree, investors will suffer no loss of principal, but Uruguay's amortisation payments will be deferred for five years.

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As a result, last year Vivendi's telecoms businesses contributed a disproportionately high euro2.31 billion to its euro5.04 billion ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).

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In the third quarter the average purchase-price multiple for a large buy-out was 9.1 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), higher than in 2006.

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As the economic news worsens and profits dive, more firms will be at risk of breaching covenants on standard measures such as the ratio of debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

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The world's biggest media company said that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were 20% up in the first quarter as against the year before (assuming completion of the merger in January 2000).

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Goldman Sachs reckons that FCPA violations typically cast a three-year cloud over a company under investigation, and that the overall cost can reach 9% of profits before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation over that period.

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For well-heeled firms like Aventis, a pharmaceuticals and agribusiness group, this poses little problem even though in 2001 the company's pension liability was half as much again as its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

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And many mortgage lenders have taken on board the Federal Reserve's jawboning, it seems, and have reduced or stopped offering enticing interest-only and negative amortisation loans for fear that their customers will start missing payments when these rise later on.

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