Tombstone

An advertisement placed in financial newspaper or magazine to announce the completion of a syndicated loan or a new issue of securities. It is called a tombstone because it consists of little more than a list of names and dates. The names are those of borrower (who pays for tombstone) and of the financial institutions which participated in the deal. They are ordered in strict seniority , the size of the typeface indicating their importance in the deal. Within the same rank, participants are listed strictly alphabetically. The more the tombstones there are, the less dead is the market.