market-flex pricing

マーケットフレックス条項について。
bondと比較した際の、レンダーサイドのリスクを回避するために始まったものだそうです。

Market-Flex Pricing and the Role of the Syndicator Also driving the use of credit ratings in the loan market has been the adoption of "market-flex pricing" in the past several years by most of the major syndicating banks. Market-flex pricing is a feature of the loan commitment that allows the

syndicator to vary the interest rate margin (i.e., the spread over the base rate,which is generally LIBOR) by a certain amount, often 25 basis points (bps) or 50 bps, as dictated by "market conditions" at the time of closing the loan.

Previously, the syndicating bank committed to a specific margin several weeks before the loan and therefore assumed all the risk of market conditions changing.
This was a major difference between the loan market and the bond market, in which bond underwriters commit to bring an issuer to market on a given date and for a specific amount, but with the pricing of the bond established according to the prevailing market rate for credits of that issuer's quality on the specific issue date. A bond issuer would never dream of going to market without a credit rating,since its pricing depends on it. But loan issuers, prior to the arrival of market-flex pricing, sometimes concluded that a rating was unnecessary because the pricing on their deal was already locked in. With the advent of market-flex pricing, loan issuers no longer have that assurance. Most of them are no longer willing to face the uncertainty of a market-determined price on their loan without a rating.

http://leeds-faculty.colorado.edu/Madigan/3020/Readings/Syndicated_Loans--A_Rated_Market_At_Last.pdf