In the past couple of years the market has been flooded with tightly priced plain vanilla deals that provide minimal fee income for the banks involved. Market observers have argued that this trend is changing as high yield targets are set to become the driving force behind banks lending policies.
China Unicom signed its $700 million three, five and seven year transaction today with just six banks joining in general syndication. Mandated arrangers Bank of China, China Construction Bank, HSBC, ICBC Asia, Hang Seng Bank and Standard Chartered Bank managed to sell down just 30% of the facility, holding a whopping $487 million between them.
Market observers had suggested the...
