Commercial Bank Debt: Risk Grows, Margins Shrink

The volume of bank debt transactions in the shipping market this year has been phenomenal. To help our readers get their minds around the data, however, we have included a substantial number of tables, which require some explanation.

The first two you will see are global shipping bookrunner and mandated lead arranger graphs based on tables produced by Dealogic. These have been a matter of some debate this year, as Dealogic struggles to scientifically define an unscientific industry. The tables shown here include only syndicated loans, which is different from some others in which bilaterals are also counted. Additionally, whereas in the past Dealogic defined “shipping” loans as those that financed vessels or were otherwise noted as pertaining directly to shipping, this year the criteria has been broadened to also include loans that are secured by vessels.

To support the Dealogic data, we have also included either complete or representative lists of deals done some of by the year’s top-performing banks. This is intended to allow our readers to look past the sort of minor differences in definition that inevitably affect league tables so as to get a better flavor of what sort of business the busiest banks did in 2004, in their own words.

This is only an excerpt of Commercial Bank Debt: Risk Grows, Margins Shrink

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