The advent of private equity in the 1970s had not initially seen large scale bank or credit entity debt as a critical structural component, with early buyout practitioners such as Nicholas C. Forstmann placing emphasis on equity investment and a close, collaborative relationship with a company's management.
[1] This, coupled with the industry's youth, served to contain PE investments to a comparatively small scale.
The 1980s innovations in debt capital markets led by Michael Milken's pioneering of high yield bonds (then called 'junk bonds') served to give the industry further mass, as did certain key takeover events such as the $25bn 1988 takeover battle for RJR Nabisco.
The board is composed of members representing both private equity sponsors (albeit frequently through their credit arms) and lenders.
As of March 2019 the Board is composed of members representing the following concerns:[4] LSTA membership is both buy- and sell-side, compromising both lenders (traditionally banks, but now also credit funds) and sponsors, as well as auxiliary operators in the syndicated loan market such as professional services firms (for example PricewaterhouseCoopers), ratings agencies such as Fitch, and law firms active in the lending/private equity space (for instance Kirkland & Ellis and Clifford Chance).