Additionally, the Spanish private sector is in the process of deleveraging. As seen in Figure 3, throughout the crisis, the Spanish private sector became more highly levered than Italy, France, or Germany, peaking at above 200% of GDP in 2009. Companies experienced difficulty making debt payments during the crisis, and are now attempting to decrease the amount of debt on their balance sheets in order to improve their leverage and coverage ratios. Even though spreads on interest rates for large companies in Spain have decreased, 51 few large Spanish companies are looking to borrow. As seen in Figure 4, in order to reduce the risk of bankruptcy and financial troubles in the case of another downturn, even the large companies in the Spanish private sector borrowed 57% less in 2013 than in 2009 to decrease the amount of debt it holds