When a potential transaction has been identified by a bank, the first activity is obtaining from the potential borrower a "mandate," which is the customer's exclusive authorization to a bank to act as the syndication manager for that particular transaction and to approach other financial institutions on its behalf to raise a given amount of funds. […] A mandate letter is very similar to a standard bank commitment letter, with the exception that bank managers do not guarantee to provide the credit facility, but rather only to syndicate it on a "best efforts" basis, perhaps with a certain firm commitment assumed by them representing a portion of the required syndicated financing.