No Strings Attached
“Your admirers on the street
Gotta hoot and stamp their feet
In the heat from your physique
As you twinkle by in moccasin sneakers
And I thought my heart would break
When you doubled up at the stake
With your fingers all a-shake
You could never tell a winner from a snake
but you always make money
Easy money
With your figure and your face
Strutting out at every race
Throw a glass around the place
Show the colour of your crimson suspenders
We would take the money home
Sit around the family throne
My old dog could chew his bone
For two weeks we could appease the Almighty
Easy money
Got no truck with the la-di-da
Keep my bread in an old fruit jar
Drive you out in a motor-car
Getting fat on your lucky star just making
Easy moneyâ€
The song that has it all, from a youthful Professor Fripp. It may need an additional verse, something about “forgetfulness†perhaps. According to press reports, the usual suspects are at it again:
“Bank lending to companies with few restrictions has surged back since the financial crisis virtually killed the practice.
The record issuance of so-called covenant-lite loans raises questions over whether a fresh wave of debt defaults and losses will return—probably not in the short term, according to experts, but becoming more likely as the trend plays itself out in coming years.
U.S. “cov-lite” loan volume recently hit $83.6 billion over 82 deals in 2014, up 41 percent from the same period in 2013 ($59.4 billion over 68 deals), according to data tracker Dealogic. That represents the highest year-to-date volume and deal activity on record.
Credit Suisse leads the U.S. for such loans with a 12.8 percent market share in 2014, according to Dealogic.
The Swiss bank is followed by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank with 11.5 percent and 10.8 percent of loans, respectively.
What could possibly go wrong, we ask you? As is well known, better stewards of capital have never graced the earth! Occasionally they might need a little bailout, but hey, we’re all friends here, we don’t need no covenants. Besides, as everybody knows, the future is so bright, you cannot look at it without first donning ray-bans!
