Loan Ranger

November and December hold many perks for the keen financial gossip columnist. The most obvious one, of course, is banks’ end-of-year parties. Those most frivolous affairs, in which, to use Christmas lingo, everyone starts off being nice and ends up being naughty, are quite the sight to behold.

It seems that for the loan market, the mere fact that an event is a mid-week one does not mean that indulgences are toned down. The proof, Loan Ranger discovered last Wednesday, was in bountiful display following Lloyds Bank’s loan markets reception.

This year’s loans awards voting process is in full swing and with it the tradition of potential voters calling Loan Ranger’s desk trying to read too much into how the voting system works, which involves voting for your favourite candidate in each category, nothing more and nothing less. Highlights have so far included:

The loan market is abuzz in anticipation. No, an A3 borrower hasn’t just asked for a new money loan priced at something resembling banks’ own funding costs — it’s much better than that. Raiffeisen Bank has sent out the invitations for its annual January ski trip.

The great and the good and all those in between of the Nordic loan market descended on Stockholm last Thursday for Svenska Handelsbanken’s annual crayfish party. Loan Ranger also managed to get an invite to this shindig that has become steeped in loan market legend. Would the schnapps flow as freely as rumour had it? Would there really be as much singing as people claimed? What is a crayfish, anyway?

Loan Ranger has made a very important discovery. He was already aware that big, bad borrowers dominated the loan market — having heard frequent complaints that they are always pushing for tighter prices and looser terms.

What do a jazz musician dubbed Bird, Hungary’s inflation rate in 1946, Bill Gates’ net worth and this year’s Wimbledon winners have in common? Answer: Société Générale’s annual press pub quiz.

A clash of Austrian banking titans took place last week in London on the top floor of the Gherkin. With the windows clouded by an impenetrable wall of fog, Claus Raidl, the charismatic president of Austria’s central bank and Herbert Stepic, the former chief executive of RBI just could not agree on Russia’s growth prospects.

Loan Ranger has a confession to make: he has been lying to you. All this time. In many ways it's not his fault, he was doomed from the start to fib. It's in the name, you see.

A flick of the calendar and there’s a sudden chill in the air. September is here, signalling the end of the long hot summer — the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and all that. Well, syndicated loan bankers will certainly be hoping for some autumn fruitfulness after an arid few months.

It must be boring being a loans banker in August. While Loan Ranger spends high summer enjoying one too many long (boozy) meetings, ultra competitive loans bankers must be desperate for some — any — rivalry to keep the spirit of the market alive while borrowers sun themselves on white sands in Mauritius.

There’s little comparison between the US and European loan markets. Unlike in the Bible, Europe’s David is no match for America’s Goliath.