Loan Ranger

Loan Ranger is gearing up for what we hope will be a busy final quarter of the year. After all, for the last few weeks, bankers have been eagerly telling us that there are more and more conversations happening, and more and more situations likely to come to fruition “in the fourth quarter”.

For once, Loan Ranger was glad that there were so few deals to write about over the last few days, as it gave him a chance to catch up with some of the loan markets’ finest in a whole week of schmoozing.

Ok, so Nestlé’s getting a loan. But let's be clear — this in no way counts as the market coming back to life. It is Nestlé, after all. So we can feel perfectly justified in dragging out a final Olympics-themed article before we have to look again at real news.

Fight your way through all the depressing statistics released last week about the loan market — yes, European volumes are down 79%, activity in August was at the lowest recorded levels, Justin Bieber won nothing at the MTV awards — and you might find some slivers of silver lining.

You can drop hints to your M&A team about how great the debt markets are, or even put on puppy dog eyes when meeting your private equity clients, but when there’s no harmony between buyer and seller, there’s no LBO. And when there are no LBOs, there’s lots of head-scratching/knocking-off-early/test-match-watching/bonus-worrying among leveraged loan bankers.

As London bathes in the warm afterglow of the Olympics and readies itself for round two when the Paralympics begins, Loan Ranger has been noticing some unintended side effects of the City’s love affair with all things sport — namely, trousers are getting looser around the waist.

The nation may have woken on Monday morning with a sudden hit of collective cold turkey now the Olympics are over, but it may be good news for the restructuring of Yell Group (sorry, Hibu).

As one loans banker admitted, the emergence of iPlayer since the last Olympics has meant stealthy sports watching has become far too easy, though at least the games have served to show the real reasons for (a) the existence of tablets, and (b) why traders need two screens.

Watching the Olympic torch as it meandered its way up and down the country should have been a heartwarming — perhaps even once-in-a-lifetime — event for us mortals. Even Loan Ranger’s spirit was momentarily lifted as we were treated to a glimpse of making its way over the Millennium Bridge.

You think the primary market’s quiet? Tell that to secondary traders, and they'll show you a really illiquid market. But still, there’s always the Olympics, right?

Aaaah, the Olympics. How they are set to inspire us to better things — get sporty, do things as a community, feel pride at our country, queue half an hour to get into a tube station, eat McDonalds, fight for the rights of the haulage industry.