We noted with interest the “Pi Day” celebrations last Saturday. 3/14/15 echoed that mathematical constant (the definition of which escapes us for the moment), spawned dozens of matrimonials, and marked the birth of Albert Einstein. March 14 was also the birthday of Billy Crystal, though we haven’t figured out the π connection there yet. Speaking…
Pricing flex is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of leveraged loans. Prior to 1998 lead arrangers would price loans weeks, sometimes months, before launching transactions into the market. Because many lenders in the syndicate traditionally ended up being relationship banks, underwriters had relatively little risk those banks would flake on a deal if market…
Call it Bother of the Bride. The singer/guitarist of a wedding band posts a picture of the mother’s blue and black dress on Tumblr. Apparently other band members said it looked white and gold, so she wanted second opinions. Well, she got them – 500 within a half-hour. Then things went viral. Buzzfeed had almost…
News reached us this week of a new Dr. Seuss book to be published July 28th. “What Pet Should I Get” was apparently written by the legendary children’s author some fifty years ago, but thought to be lost. Mrs. Seuss discovered the manuscript (and two others) while she was “cleaning out his office.” Her husband…
From prehistoric times until 2003, human beings cumulatively created five exobytes of data. That’s five billion gigabytes. We now produce that much information every 48 hours. We send out 100 million emails every minute. Bombarded by this blizzard of bytes, we can’t possibly manage it coherently. What to do? Welcome to the era of content…
Last month we wrote a blog for the website of the New York chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. For those who don’t know, ACG is the premier association for middle market professionals (your correspondent is a board member). The blog was on job searching; specifically, how job opportunities arise from networking. Based on…
Cutting through Central Park on our way to a meeting recently, we encountered a worker fiddling with what looked like a centrifuge for uranium enrichment. Somewhat alarmed, we slowed our pace. “What is that?” “It’s to keep armadillos away.” “Didn’t think there were any armadillos in Central Park.” With a grin, he said: “Well, then,…
It’s hard to know exactly when second-lien term loans first appeared in the leveraged loan market. According to S&P’s Loan Primer, they showed up in the mid-1990s, as the institutional market grew, and then vanished with the Russian debt crisis of 1998. Our suspicion is these structures evolved from “over-advance” facilities in conjunction with asset-based loans,…
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an Eastern Airlines plane! We thought we were having flashbacks from rum-soaked Acapulco trips we took back in the 1970’s, but turns out the iconic “Wings of Man” brand is making a comeback of sorts. Beginning with charter flights, Eastern is re-launching aviation service in March. No mention…
We noted with amusement a tidbit in Friday’s WSJ on professional cuddling. Apparently a growing number of fully clothed people are paying snuggle experts for services that include squeezing, tickling, and bear-hugging. “I felt transformed,” one client reported. Besides trying to wrap our brain around the fine distinction between this activity and…well, others, we were…