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The role of bankers in the U.S. syndicated loan market

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  • Herpfer, Christoph

Abstract

I construct a novel dataset of individual bankers in the U.S. syndicated loan market to analyze the impact of bankers for the largest, most transparent borrowers. Bankers exhibit time-invariant preferences for specific loan characteristics, or styles. In addition, exploiting within-borrower variation in personal relationship strength from banker turnover, I find that stronger relationships lead to significantly lower interest rates. This effect is stronger if borrowers lack a credit rating or issue less frequent and shorter horizon management reports. Relationship loans are associated with fewer bankruptcies and fewer favorable modifications in renegotiations.

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  • Herpfer, Christoph, 2021. "The role of bankers in the U.S. syndicated loan market," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:71:y:2021:i:2:s0165410120300859
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2020.101383
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    2. Dagostino, Ramona & Gao, Janet & Ma, Pengfei, 2023. "Partisanship in loan pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    3. Gareth Anderson & Saleem Bahaj & Matthieu Chavaz & Angus Foulis & Gabor Pinter, 2023. "Lending Relationships and the Collateral Channel," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 851-887.
    4. Johannes Carow, 2024. "A critical assessment of the two-way fixed-effects model for firm-level dependent variables," Working Papers 2405, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    5. Carvalho, Daniel & Gao, Janet & Ma, Pengfei, 2023. "Loan spreads and credit cycles: The role of lenders’ personal economic experiences," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 118-149.
    6. Lyu, Huaili & Wang, Wenming & Xu, Si & Zhou, Jingting, 2022. "Individual investment bankers’ reputation concerns and bond yield spreads: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    7. Chava, Sudheer & Ganduri, Rohan & Paradkar, Nikhil & Zhang, Yafei, 2021. "Impact of marketplace lending on consumers’ future borrowing capacities and borrowing outcomes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1186-1208.
    8. Burietz, Aurore & Picault, Matthieu, 2023. "To lend or not to lend? The ECB as the ‘intermediary of last resort’," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

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