Wall Street Banks Rush to Reclaim Edge in Market for Buyout Debt

Wall Street’s top banks are rushing back into the lucrative market for leveraged buyouts to reclaim business from private creditors.

Banks are committing financing for a slew of new deals — from the $1 billion loan for the purchase of book publisher Simon & Schuster Inc. to the roughly $1.7 billion of debt for the acquisition of packaging firm Veritiv Corp. They can win this business, in part, because they’ve cleared out so much of the older debt stuck on their books that made it harder to compete for new offerings.

Investors, meanwhile, are eager to buy syndicated loans, ...