The GlobalCapital Podcast

• Will Credit Suisse survive and in what form?
• Tech lending after SVB
• A false dawn for EM issuers

Swiss regulators are known for making capital requirements tougher for their banks than rule makers elsewhere — it’s known as the Swiss finish. But that didn’t prevent the Swiss National Bank from having to provide a Sfr50bn lifeline to Credit Suisse this week and the bank’s future is still far from certain.

We investigate whether t...

-                  Hand wringing at the end of Arm saga

-                  Green bond rebirth for corporate issuers

-                  Getting private money into development finance

-                  Lenders look to engage Europe’s telcos

Arm gave the UK equity capital markets a slap this week when it opted to list in New York rather than the celebrated microchip designer’s home exchange in London, despite hug...

- QT walks among us 
- Companies get a yen for yen 
- Divi recaps return 
- EU sets Green Bond Standard

Quantitative tightening got a bit tighter this week when the ECB stopped showing up in the order books for new covered bond syndications. The central bank’s asset purchases have been a defining feature of Europe’s bond market for the last few years as used its balance sheet to fight crisis after crisis. We ta...

• Upheaval in the CEE bond market
• Covid aftershocks in the US CMBS market
• What Banga means for the World Bank and SSA bonds

Russia shocked the world a year ago today when it invaded Ukraine. The world has felt the effects, including the capital markets. To mark the occasion we look into three areas of the markets profoundly changed by the war and question how they will develop as the conflict rumbles on.

The pandemic also had a ...

• Are EU bonds govvies yet?
• Fast moving credit market develops a strange rattling noise
• Debt-for-nature: from the Galapagos to the developing world

The EU’s huge funding programme and how it issues debt make it appear very much like a sovereign borrower. But while it might like to view itself as such, its audience of investors and bankers don’t entirely agree that it is… yet.

We discuss why the EU wants to be part of the govvie ...

- Do two IPO swallows make a summer, or a winter of discontent?

- Why investors think SLBs are 'worthless' and what to do about it

- The buy-side grapples with government green bonds

- Moans in loans

The first two IPOs in Europe this year were priced this week, for Ionos and EuroGroup Laminations. They were a key test for the market after a dismal 2022 when many new listings were shelved as market participants grappled with i...

• Investors bored with sustainability targets
• How green was my allocation? Bookrunners won’t tell you
• Can emerging market borrowers keep up the comeback?

There’s a clash brewing in the sustainability-linked bond market with investors losing interest in issuers’ KPI targets. We ask why these important sustainability targets are missing the mark and what the consequences are for the SLB market.

We also look into the problems surro...

• What’s up with ECM?
• European politicians suddenly love securitization again
• Adani versus Hindenburg Research and what it means for Adani’s banks

The equity capital markets were supposed to have been alive with deals this January — bond markets certainly have been — but very little has happened. We investigate who is to blame and when we might see some action.

Meanwhile, European politicians and officials have stigmatised the s...

• Mighty Earth vs JBS: how sustainable is the SLB market?
• How the FIG and corporate bond markets are changing this year
• What can put a stop to record bond issuance

The sustainability-linked bond market is a nascent one but booming. It is a controversial one too, with some accusing it of being a platform for greenwashing. Those accusations escalated this week when Mighty Earth, an NGO, made a complaint to the US Securities and E...

• Sergiy Nikolaychuk of Ukraine’s central bank offers an in-depth look at the country’s economy in wartime
• Can the good times last in the primary bond market?
• Real estate looks for refi rehab and direct lenders end up as owners

Sergiy Nikolaychuk is the deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s central bank. Appointed to the job in 2021, he has been at the heart of Ukraine’s financial system and economy thr...

• Why the good times in primary bond markets may not last
• The consequences of the ECB’s demand that banks buffer their leveraged finance positions on LBOs
• How that could play into the hands of private creditors

The first couple of weeks in January are not just among the busiest of the year in the capital markets but can also tell us a lot about the year ahead. In the first GlobalCapital Podcast of the year, we take a look acros...

In GlobalCapital's last podcast of 2022, four of our journalists pick the moments from this year that stood out most for them as important, memorable... or amusing.

We also discuss how the UK regulator is using Brexit to try and ease some of the harsh restrictions imposed on securitization by the EU since 2008 — while the EU is refusing to listen to the industry’s complaints.

In the equity capital market, there has been a burst ...

• Will the easing of Chinese Covid rules help or harm emerging market issuers?
• How public sector issuers compete with a jumbo — and growing — borrower like the EU
• Private credit’s late bloom

China relaxed some of its zero-Covid policy this week, giving hope that this will stimulate Chinese growth. We explain why that will be a boost for beleaguered emerging market bond issuers and investors — and also why it might not.

The Europ...

• Hungary, its investors and their ESG worries
• The digital bond markets take a step forward
• Aroundtown drama fails to cool hot hybrid market

Hungary came to the markets this week with a privately placed increase of a dollar bond. Along with recent green bonds from the issuer, the response from some in the market was that the issuer was doing funding this way to avoid scrutiny over its standards of governance.

The country is in a...

• How much longer can the extraordinary run of bank bond issuance last?
• Are sustainability-linked bonds too complicated to be meaningful?
• New bond, old tricks: the art of underwriting returns

It has been a record November for bank bond issuance and one of the busiest months for that market ever. That is, of course, unusual. What is even more unusual is that many in the market expect the pace of issuance to run long into Decembe...

• Will the Santa rally in bonds last until Christmas?
• How much bond issuance will TLTRO repayments drive?
• Ithaca Energy: autopsy of an IPO 

The first UK IPO of significance in a year might have been hoped to be a bellwether for future deals and perhaps spark a revival for listings. But the IPO of Ithaca Energy has not worked out quite as the company and its investors might have hoped with the share price tumbling. We take an in...

• The re-emergence of lender protection in leveraged finance
• How one Korean insurance company caused chaos in Asia’s bond market
• Climate resilience comes to sovereign bonds

Some serious people in the leveraged finance market believe that covenants designed to protect investors are on their way back. That would mark the reversal of a trend that has been going on for perhaps 20 years of borrowers, and the people that own them, pu...

That the asset management industry – and the financial markets at large – has a problem with gender equality and women’s participation will be a shock to no one. But a recent survey laid bare just how stark the issue is despite years of debate about how to make the business a better place to work for half of the population.

Two women with a wealth of financial markets experience joined us this week to discuss the state of ...

• Who’s in
• Who’s out
• Who’s paying for it

Credit Suisse finally revealed its new strategy this week — breaking the firm up into three. Talk about a Swiss finish. Many of the details had been leaked in the run up to the announcement but it was no less momentous for all of that.

The Swiss firm will keep its domestic operations, wealth and asseet management and markets businesses. Meanwhile, it is selling its profitable but capital-...