Market Monitor

Edited by Peter Lee

Syndicated loans: The perils of going Dutch

At 2pm on a Monday afternoon in mid-October, senior representatives of 10 of the Euroloan market’s leading commercial banks gathered at Voorlinden at Wassenaar, near The Hague. They had not come to admire Voorlinden’s impressive gardens and stately setting. It was the treasury officials of Dutch telephone company KPN and its loan arranger Goldman Sachs who commanded everyone’s attention on the afternoon of October 14.

Several bankers nearly didn’t make it, wrong-footed by the last-minute change of venue needed to accommodate all those wanting to attend.