Firm transparency & the impact of economic crises on Western European syndicated loan pricing

• Autor(a) principal: Lecompte, Gérôme Gijs
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/42605
• topic: Syndicated loans; Economic crises; Firm transparency; Empréstimos sindicalizados; Crises económicas; Transparência das empresas; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

This research investigates the relationship between the transparency level of a firm and the effects of economic crises on the all-in-drawn spread of syndicated loans. To conduct my research, I gathered a sample of 3,116 syndicated loans, granted to 932 individual companies in the Benelux, Germany and France granted from 01/2008 until 06/2022. This timeframe covers 3 major economic crises: the 2008/2009 financial crisis, the European debt crisis, and the COVID-19 crisis. My findings confirm that public and especially large-cap firms experience a stronger increase in syndicated loan prices during economic crises. Furthermore, I also provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play by including borrower-specific variables, such as the EBITDA and the effect of a borrowers’ credit rating. To validate my results, I have also performed a series of robustness checks.