One of the many noteworthy aspects of last week's Walstead/St Ives web deal is that Walstead is now being financed by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Prior to this Walstead's activities had been funded by the asset-based lending wing of Bank Leumi of Israel. Leumi was a new name to me when it first appeared in connection with Walstead's acquisition of Wyndeham back in 2008. The bank subsequently popped up at Polestar too, attached to a full form debenture charge over the business at the end of its 2009 financial year.

Naturally, at the time this resulted in a flurry of over-excitement in these parts - never one to miss up an opportunity to put two and two together and get at least five, could it mean that a coming together of Polestar and Wyndeham was on the cards? The answer was an unequivocal no.

I was intrigued, though, that none of Polestar's existing banking syndicate - ironically this includes Royal Bank of Scotland, along with Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, and BlueBay Asset Management - were involved. The answer from within Polestar Towers was that Polestar had previously been using RBS for its working capital facility, but post-banking crisis things were not working out. "As you are probably aware, RBS are currently trying to alienate themselves from the world and his wife at the moment, Polestar not excepted... Leumi are commercial and sensible - all the things RBS aren't."

That was in February 2010. What a difference a year makes, eh? Well, certainly for the Walstead Investments chaps.

With Polestar's latest refinancing set to be complete by the end of this month, or early next, I'm thinking of starting a book on which banking brand will be attached to it. A saucer of cream is on the way to the contact who rather cattily suggested Ocean Finance as the frontrunner.