highly gearedadjective
ukusUK US highly leveraged FINANCEused to describe a company that has a large amount of debt compared to its share capital, (= money in shares) or the structure of such a company's capital:
Companies with high debts are 'highly geared', and face financial difficulties if their profits fall or interest rates rise.
The company's board said it would not support the highly leveraged capital structure of the proposed buyout offer.
used to describe a person who has borrowed a large amount of money compared to their income or the amount of capital they already have:
US homes are about as strongly rated as UK ones but the US consumer is even more highly geared than the UK one.