Some investment funds will lend where banks fear to tread WHEN Caronte & Tourist, a Sicilian ferry company, needs a new ship, it is cheap and easy to borrow from a bank. But in 2016, when Caronte's controlling families wanted to buy back the minority stake held by a private-equity firm, banks balked at the loan's unusual purpose. Edoardo Bo-nanno, the chief financial officer, also worried that the €3om ($33m) in extra bank debt might make shipping loans harder to obtain from them in future. So he turned instead to a direct-lending fund run by Mu-zinich & Co, an asset manager.
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