Leveraged Finance Question 1

Hi,

Please can some leveraged financiers provide some advice?

I was wondering, assuming a booming market pre-crisis, what are the differences between doing leveraged finance at an investment bank and a commercial bank:

1) a pure investment bank such as MS, GS

2) a strong balance sheet commercial/investment bank such as JPM/DB

3) a strong commercial bank such as BNP, RBS, ING

I understand that in all 3 the cases the banks syndicate most of it away and keep a little bit on the balance sheet. All 3 of them work on many large transactions either as lead arranger either as part of the syndication

Is the skillset you learn the same in all 3 the banks in a leveraged finance team?

Obviously the better the brand name the better the exit opportunities but can we assume that the skills you learn as a leveraged financier at RBS/ING are exactly the same as a leveraged financier at JPM/GS?

Thanks

5 Comments
 

Thats a great question. I would suspect they are the same; however, the larger commercial banks most likely see higher deal flow because they have more money to lend.

 
Best Response

Is the skillset you learn the same in all 3 the banks in a leveraged finance team?

Sort of. Do you get the same "credit analysis" (ie modeling, business/industry analysis) in all three (it should just be just two, traditional banks vs. universals)? Yes, but what will separate them is deal/transaction experience. You will get the most dealflow at places like DB, JPM, and BofA.

GS, MS, ML used to have decent dealflow back in the day since they would usually would be M&A advisors and take a cut of the financing fees as well. Now they're a little skiddish on underwriting lately.

Banks like BNP, RBS, and RBC has very little transaction flow, and when they do they're usually deep right on the deal (ING doesn't lead deals to my knowledge).

 

Don't they all work on the same deals as part of the syndication?

Recent ING-led transactions in the region include the acquisition of CTL Logistics in Poland by Bridgepoint, the refinancing of Warburg Pincus-owned Euromedic, and the acquisition of Ceske Radiokomunikace, which was the largest buy-out financing in the region at the time.

ING’s Leveraged Finance and Sponsor Coverage Group has dedicated teams based in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. ING was MLA on 25 transactions (9 as Sole MLA) in 2007, representing €25.0 billion of facilities. In 2006 ING was MLA on 22 transactions (10 as Sole MLA), representing €19.8 billion of facilities.

 

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