During the past decade, non-bank institutional investors are increasingly taking larger roles in the corporate lending than they historically have played. These non-bank institutional lenders typically have higher required rates of return than banks, but invest in the same loan facilities. In a sample of 20,031 leveraged loan facilities originated between 1997 and 2007, facilities including a non-bank institution in their syndicates have higher spreads than otherwise identical bank-only facilities. Contrary to risk-based explanations of this finding, non-bank facilities are priced with premiums relative to bank-only facilities in the same loan package. These non-bank premiums are substantially larger when a hedge or private equity fund is one of the syndicate members. Consistent with the notion that firms are willing to pay a premium when loan facilities are particularly important to them, the non-bank premiums are larger when borrowing firms face financial constraints and when capital is less available from banks.
Jongha Lim, Bernadette A. Minton, and Michael Weisbach
Journal of Financial Economics
2014
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