From www.sciencedirect.com: Institutional investors in loan syndicates charge lower loan spreads to bellwether firms, compensating for access to private information that helps identify trading opportunities in other firms’ public market securities.

The study finds that these investors earn annualized excess returns of 1.5–2.2% by trading based on the insights gained from lending to bellwether borrowers.

Additionally, the value of the private information influences both the loan spread charged and the investors’ trading performance, with reductions in loan spreads observed particularly when information from bellwether firms is more valuable.