Not much had changed at the macro level. The market’s loss of confidence was driven as much by a slightly backwards-on psychological shock that prices could even in theory swing so violently in a market in which ECB stimulus had rendered yield developments a one-way bet as it was by the risk of a Greek debt deal not being struck, China’s equity market wobbles and oil prices. The market’s unsettled tone certainly made the speakers from the bond side at the roundtable a little more apprehensive ab

Thomas Haas Bayerische Landesbank Thomas Haas is global head of loan syndication at Bayerische Landesbank, with responsibility for the origination, underwriting, execution and distribution of lead mandates for syndicated loans. He has held his current position since January 2013. The loan syndication unit plays an integral role in BayernLB’s corporates and Mittelstand customers division. Haas manages the transformation process towards BayernLB becoming a long-term partner that goes beyond tradit

IFR: Welcome to IFR’s 2015 German SME Financing Roundtable. Our focus today is on the extent to which modes of financing and financing conditions for mid-caps may be changing within Germany. One of the elements that struck me when we had this discussion in 2014 was that while the European policy debate around mid-cap financing is axed around the notion of banks no longer lending thereby requiring capital markets and alternative solutions, the issue in Germany is that mid-caps don’t have any prob

IFR: There has been a little bit of seepage, though … Marion Schiller, UniCredit: Exactly, because of liquidity. This really concerns me. On the syndicated loan side it can create real problems. Martijn Kamps, ING: If you look at where we are in the cycle, we are discussing late credit-cycle features such as covenant-lites and we are moving investment-grade products into the high-yield/sub-investment grade or crossover areas. But if you look on a macroeconomic view, we see early-cycle indicators

IFR: I wanted to bring in the topic of securitisation. From a policy perspective there’s a huge initiative to kick-start securitisation as a regulatory capital relief tool and as a risk lay-off mechanism for banks. On a related theme, we did see an SME structured covered bond, although the Pfandbrief community was very cautious about it. How do developments in this broad area change the dynamic in terms of SME funding? Thomas Haas, Bayerische Landesbank: One thing is for sure: running a bank bus