Loan Ranger

A blushing, uncultured fool of a Loan Ranger would like to make it clear to readers that he did, of course, know that the Francis Bacon exhibition in London, where Bank of America is holding its press party next month, was at Tate Britain, and not Tate Modern.

Lights! Action! Camera! Tonto was in high excitement yesterday as he strode around the ranch in his jodhpurs and cracked his horsewhip with a leer.

Despite far, far too many people away on holiday, at the moment Loan Ranger has found he’s had plenty to giggle and gossip about with those that have been stuck in the office with diddly-squat to do.

Loan Ranger is not, you understand, the type of person that is obsessed by the use of the English language, and a decrier of unorthodox uses of grammar and syntax. Nor is he one of those people that is easily angered by management-speak and the corporate jargon bankers are so fond of — like "rationalising our resources" to mean "firing", for example.

There may not have been a trade all week in the secondary market, and commitments from Spanish and Italian banks may be hard to come by with most credit committees on holiday at the moment, but it has at least been a very busy time for anniversaries.

August may be upon us, but the loan market is still busy setting new records all the time. Loan Ranger was very impressed this week to hear of the outcome of the Clear Channel LBO in the US — the buyout took 622 days to get done, the longest time to complete a deal on record for a financial sponsor buyout, Dealogic tells us.

The ranch has been much amused in the last two weeks by Manfred Wennemer’s colourful rants. The Continental chief executive was livid when he heard that rival Schaeffler had made an offer for his company and had indirectly acquired about 36% of its stock. He called the bid "egoistic, high-handed and irresponsible", forcing Schaeffler to respond that these remarks were "incomprehensible" and that it didn’t "appreciate the tone".

Loan Ranger got hot under the collar this week when he read that Conservative leader David Cameron was planning to introduce Chapter 11 style bankruptcy in the UK if the Tories get elected.

Loans bankers sure do know how to wile away these long summer days, as the market winds down for the August break.

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Ok, ok, we get the message. Loans bankers do go to a lot of parties — although Loan Ranger is sad to say that he hasn’t been able to saddle up with Silver and ride long distance to as many as he would like.

Loan Ranger would like to apologise for hinting last week that loans bankers weren’t up for much partying any more. We were in fact much mistaken — loan marketeers are quietly getting on with their merrymaking, much in the same way as they are busy quietly syndicating all those hung leveraged loans.