Loan Ranger

Bankers are often cagey when it comes to talking about sensitive commercial data, but Italians are always game to talk politics - and have a knack for the clear if unconventional analogy. This was proven once again when Loan Ranger was getting the latest on the Italian market.

When Loan Ranger finds out the details of bank meetings, conversation follows a predictable path. Talk is of margins, original issue discounts and tenors. Fascinating stuff, but it means one borrower’s deal can seem much like another’s at times.

The question of when interest rates are finally going to rise and by how much is one that preys on the minds of all bankers, least not of course loans officials. A sure-fire indication that we are moving to a rising interest rate environment would do wonders for those looking to increase their allocation to floating rate instruments.

At two to three every Friday, several men and women, most of them in their early thirties, walk confidently into the vast, sunlit room, sure of their prize. At three, on the dot, a petite woman carries in two platters of freshly baked cookies - white chocolate or raisin - and rings a large golden bell. The remaining colleagues - those who still need the Pavlovian reminder after months of practice - hurry in and congregate around the long, wooden table.

Returning from holiday is a curious experience. The length and restfulness of the time away are often proportional to the mounting dread that infuses one’s thoughts of the first day back at the desk.

It’s a big year for a major European bank, with the office set to move to a new building and excitement in the air.

The highs and lows of being a leveraged loans banker: You have just given a stellar end of year review presentation to the team when you realise your enthusiasm for the exercise has meant you are going to miss your compulsory Continuing Professional Development seminar.

It’s difficult enough being a loans banker these days. But worse still when a big chunk of your expected business for the year hangs on the publication of a set of rules drafted to capture a wide range of divergent political motivations in a complex, ever-changing international stand-off. And when receiving those rules depends on wading through a stream of mundane celebrity gossip on Twitter it constitutes a form of torture.

We all know those off-site training events and conferences can be a bit of a bore sometimes, with delegates yawning their way through lengthy opening addresses, market outlooks and panel discussions of the latest regulatory minutiae, so it’s hardly surprising that banks sometimes turn to unorthodox methods to keep attendees awake.

Loan ranger spends a lot of time talking to PAs. Some of these conversations are polite, others not so much. But all carry the whiff of suspicion, and last week, minor heartbreak.

“They keep me in the dark and feed me waste.” Not the ethos of the latest fitness regime but instead the lament of a loans banker comparing himself to a mushroom.

The business lunch is a well loved perk of Loan Ranger’s job. Last Friday was set to be no exception, until Loan Ranger was stood up by a corporate finance banker in the worst possible way.