For the ninth consecutive year, Chase tops the syndicated lending league tables by a considerable margin. Peter Gleysteen, global head of syndicated financing at Chase attributes this to "embodied experience, knowledge and judgement of our professional team." Heads of personnel at competing banks should be somewhat rattled by his follow-up that "the few great people in the business who are not in this team - my mission is to make them part of it."
Over the last 12 months, Chase has been lead manager for over 600 deals. Globally this gives the bank a market share of 34%, and in US market Chase enjoys a share of around 50%.
League table standards differ in the various markets. US tables give full credit for the total size of a deal to lead arrangers, whereas the standard European model proportionately allocates credit to any bank with the arranger title - and there can be many arrangers on a deal by the time it is fully underwritten. Even the latter breakdown still leaves Chase comfortably ahead of the pack.
The continuing advantage that such a lead gives is, says Gleysteen, extremely significant in that having greater knowledge as to the state of play with various deals allows for a better sense of ever-changing bank liquidity levels: "We're talking about a market very sensitive to supply and demand, and sometimes a very new supply of issues eats up available cash.