Three bulge-bracket investment banks have put up €150m ($128m) towards a €1.33bn syndicated loan for Sonera, the Finnish telecoms group.

The participation of so many investment banks - Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch - in a vanilla credit of this kind is very unusual. It is being seen as the latest sign of the pressure the pure investment banks are coming under to lend money to clients if they want to win advisory work.