Chase Moves to Top of Loan Ranking Bank of America Slides to Fourth.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

Chase manhattan bank moved to the top spot in the loan rankings last year, leading nearly $26 billion of loan transactions. Chase's bank total accounts for about one-third of the $73 billion of loans underwritten for the chemical industry in 1999. Overall loans in the whole market were up 19% from 1998.

"Bank and bond markets remained liquid, particularly for the bigger deals," says David Bradley, managing director and global head/ chemicals at Chase Securities (New York). Chase led one of the largest loan packages in the chemical industry, $7.2 billion to Air Products and Chemicals. The loan financed Air Products' portion of its joint acquisition of BOC with Air Liquide. That beat the $7-billion credit package provided by J.P. Morgan and …