Everything about Syndicated Loans totally explained
A
syndicated loan (or "syndicated bank facility") is a large
loan in which a group of banks work together to provide funds for a borrower. There is usually one lead bank (the "Arranger" or "Agent") that takes a percentage of the loan and
syndicates the rest to other banks. A
syndicated loan is the opposite of a
bilateral loan, which only involves one
borrower and one
lender (often a
bank or
financial institution.) A syndicated loan is a much larger and more complicated version of a participation loan. There are typically more than two banks involved in a syndication.
Reasons for syndicated lending
Like insurance, a loan is an assumption of
risk. For a certain class of loan, with certain rules, the bank might believe that it's likely that 5% of all borrowers may go bankrupt. If the bank's cost of funds is a hypothetical 5%, the bank needs to charge more than 10% interest on the loan to make a profit. In general, banks and the financial markets use
risk-based pricing, charging an
interest rate depending on the risk of the loan product in general or the risk of the specific borrower. The problem with larger businesses loans, however, is that there are fewer of them. So, if the bank has the only large business loan and if that business happens to be one of the 5% that defaults, then the bank loses all its money. For this reason, it's in the best interest of all banks to split, or "syndicate" their large loans with each other, so each get a
representative sample in their loan portfolios.
A second, often criticized reason for syndicating loans is that it avoids large or surprising
losses and instead usually provides small and more predictable losses. Smaller and more predictable losses are favored by many management teams because of the general perception that companies with "smoother" or more steady earnings are awarded a higher stock price relative to their earnings (benefiting management who is often paid primarily by stock). Critics, such as
Warren Buffett, however, say that many times this practice is
irrational. If the bank could still get a representative sample by not syndicating, and if syndication would reduce their profit margins, then over the long term a bank should make more money by not syndicating. This same dynamic plays out in the
investment banking and
insurance fields, where syndication also takes place.
To avoid the
borrower having to deal with all the
syndicate banks individually, one of the
syndicate banks usually acts as an
Agent for all
syndicate members and acts as the focal point between them and the
borrower.
Largest Syndicated lenders in the United States in 2006
EMEA Bookrunner ranking full year 2006
| Rank |
Name |
Volume ($m) |
Deals |
% Market share |
| 1 |
RBS |
73,181.59 |
112 |
6.99 |
| 2 |
Citi |
70,824.57 |
95 |
6.76 |
| 3 |
BNP Paribas |
66,591.44 |
165 |
6.36 |
| 4 |
Deutsche Bank |
45,594.37 |
42 |
4.35 |
| 5 |
Calyon |
44,716.73 |
88 |
4.27 |
| 6 |
JP Morgan |
38,399.01 |
39 |
3.67 |
| 7 |
SG Corporate & Investment Banking |
37,564.89 |
73 |
3.59 |
| 8 |
Dresdner Kleinwort |
26,173.32 |
47 |
2.50 |
| 9 |
HSBC |
21,855.72 |
47 |
2.09 |
|
Subtotal |
472,090.49 |
574 |
45.06 |
|
Total |
1,047,639.18 |
1,425 |
100.00
|
Further Information
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