Spotlight on Banks

Every day we speak with bankers, owners and a wide variety of intermediaries in the business of ship finance. We have been warned about “dabblers,” seen the growing involvement of regional banks, watched banks with taxes to pay establish tax driven asset finance divisions, heard whispers of increasingly fierce competition from Japanese Trading Houses, but no two communities have been so much talked about as the Dutch and Germans. It does not matter where you are – Greece, Hong Kong, the US – their involvement is global.

Not surprisingly, the Dutch and German banking communities, depending upon whom you speak with, represent the best and worst of the current surge of bank debt financing. We found them open, generally well informed about the market, certainly competitive, hard working for their clients and in most cases with sufficient corporate memory to know how painful a down market can be.

Our rolodexes are becoming so tightly packed with new players arriving at traditional institutions and well known faces turning up at new locations and new players at new shops that we thought it might be helpful, if we occasionally brought some of those participants in the market into a bit clearer focus. Below are three of the names turning up more and more frequently on the “in favor of” line on mortgages we review.

This is only an excerpt of Spotlight on Banks

Content is restricted to subscribers. To continue reading please Log-In or view our subscription options.