Loan Ranger

Loan Ranger and the gang spent most of the week at the Euromoney Forum, and what a lot we’ve learnt. We especially liked the high yield bond panel, which we thought was particularly insightful.

What an exciting week it’s been at the ranch. Shoving and clawing their way through a swarm of London paparazzi outside the Houses of Parliament, Loan Ranger and Silver got themselves a prime spot on the back row during Wednesday’s Treasury select committee hearing into the private equity industry at the House of Commons.

Readers will remember that this column left them with a question last week. What is Declan McGrath’s handicap? We did, of course, pose the question in a golfing sense and frankly the replies we’ve had are far too rude to publish.

It is not often the good people at Lloyds TSB get a collective mention in this column. It might be because of their Protestant work ethic, meaning that the likes of Tonto rarely bump into their number in the post-loans party queue at the kebab van, or simply that they don’t do many deals — we’ll assume it’s the former.

‘Good things come to those who wait’ is a saying that Silver takes little notice of, preferring instead to have his cake and eat it whenever possible.

Loan Ranger and Tonto have almost forgotten where the ranch is, so busy have they been this week whirling about the market like a couple of social, if a tad over-fed, butterflies. Almost every meal was taken care of, with breakfast parties to attend, grand four course lunches to gorge on and drinks and supper parties on offer every night. Perhaps the silliest (though much appreciated) invite was from the good people at Lehman Brothers’ curiously named corporate philanthropy department. They invited Silver and Tonto to London’s National Portrait Gallery for a sneak preview of its pop art portrait exhibition, which opens in October.

Everyone at the ranch was polishing shoes and ironing shirts this week after a series of exciting invitations dropped on the doormat. And no, we didn’t get one from the newly inaugurated and still rather dishy President Sarkozy, despite our glowing column last week.

You perhaps wouldn’t have thought it, but Loan Ranger and France’s brand new and rather dishy president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have something in common. No, we don’t both spark riots in La Bastille and generally scare the left wing softies into submission. But we are both big fans of hard workers who like to get the job done.

A smashing time was had last Friday, at the mutual back-slapping bash that was the post-signing reception of Ukreximbank’s recent loan at the Ukrainian embassy in London’s Holland Park.

Loan Ranger and friends are clearly going up in the world.

Loan Ranger would like to commiserate with the ever-popular Sean Boylan.

The restructured loan supporting the buyout of Qantas was launched into the market on Wednesday night.