A new member of Societe Generale's New York loan syndications team received a lecture on procedure after he made the mistake of slipping a rubber band around some photocopied loan documents.
At the time SocGen was in the midst of a hostile takeover battle at home in France. His boss, Robert E. Woods - who heads the $450-billion asset banking company's syndicated lending in the Americas - told the newcomer that he prefers a more tidy look for such documentation, which is used like a prospectus by potential participants in a loan syndicate. 
Mr. Woods, 51, who headed banking's biggest loan shop at Citicorp in the late 1980s, is instilling in his staff the tricks of the trade as he tries to make SocGen the preeminent foreign bank in the U.S. loan market.
"It's important to be consistent, for people to recognize us and know that we've done our homework," Mr. Woods said. "We want to be known as a very high-quality syndications originator."
But it has been an uphill battle.
After making such high-profile hires as Mr. Woods in 1996 and buying the loan-brokering boutique Meenan McDevitt & Co. in 1997, the company is perceived by some to be an underachiever.
For instance, in leveraged lending, the most profitable type of syndicated loan, Societe Generale has managed only eight deals, worth $801 million, in 1999 - less than such smaller regional banks as SunTrust Inc. ($1.29 billion), Wachovia Corp. ($1.16 billion), or SocGen's smaller French rival, Credit Lyonnais ($1.08 billion).
To that, Mr. Woods responded: "We built up our syndications department here to bring a strong distribution platform to SG in the Americas. We specifically we've focused on individual sectors to bring the syndicated loan market to them. That is and remains our objective."
But bankers say the 30-member U.S. team has been slowed by the French bank's "Europe-first" strategy, in which Societe Generale focused its efforts on the booming corporate finance business in Europe. Then, this summer, senior management in Paris was in embroiled in the takeover skirmish with Banque Nationale de Paris and Paribas.
Societe Generale bankers in New York decline to comment on how the battle affected its business in the Americas. But the company's dramatic drop in syndications this year suggests U.S. lending suffered. SocGen syndicated nine loan packages worth $1.31 billion this year, against 26 worth $4.63 billion in 1998.
Societe Generale emerged from the fight still standing, but not unchanged, bankers said. To insiders, it now appears to be following the lead of other European banks making a push in the United States such as ABN Amro and UBS AG - both of which have announced bigger forays into the Americas.
Likewise, Societe Generale is under shareholder pressure to improve profitability and returns. For the U.S. loan team, the hope is there will be new support for a new push. Mr. Woods also points out that the bank was named the No. 1 project finance debt house in the Americas by International Financing Review.
"That's something to build on," he said.
