Send us a text ◆ Wendel proves the summer market isn't just for the big boys ◆ Trio of new issues show buoyant market for banks ◆ Private credit's threat to the investment grade bond and loan markets Both the investment grade corporate and financial institution bond markets this week hosted stellar new issues, proving that for certain issuers the perceived lack of summer liquidity is a fiction. Wendel broke its usual issuance pattern to price a very successful new issue, proving t...

Send us a text ◆ Mexico throws Pemex innovative debt lifeline ◆ Callable ZCs in vogue for public sector issuers ◆ Why ECB regs update will drive insurance capital issuance Pemex, Mexico's state-owned energy company, is a storied bond issuer. But lately it has been in a spot of bother. We explain what has been going and what an innovative bit of financing organised by the Mexican government this week — a P-cap — will do to east the company's debt burden. Meanwhile, a particular gro...

Send us a text ◆ EU budget ambition to cement issuer status ◆ French spreads ◆ Finally, the European bond market's consolidated tape The European Commission has launched what its president, Ursula von der Leyen has called its "most ambitious" budget proposals. They include a heap of joint borrowing to be done by the EU, cementing its status as a permanently huge bond issuer. We look into the numbers to see what it means for the SSA bond market. Meanwhile, in France, covered bonds ...

Send us a text ◆ UK rule change cheers covered bonds... ◆ ... as it shelves Taxonomy plans amid wider transition shift ◆ Digital markets: what makes a swap smart The UK is going for growth and is making a regulatory revamp part of that programme. Chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves said this week in her Mansion House speech that "in too many areas, regulation still acts as a boot on the neck of businesses" and that she was part of a government that has "swept away" reg...

Send us a text ◆ Stellar conditions for issuers across the bond market ◆ How bond issuance will pan out over the rest of the year ◆ Dedollarisation discussed The relatively few issuers that took advantage of the primary market this week were well rewarded. US tariffs were kicked down the road once more meaning low volatility and so investors were happy to chase what deals they could find. But is the market about to quieten down for the summer just when it seems there could not be ...

Send us a text ◆ SSA yields bump up against US government curve with deficit set to spiral ◆ Waning CEEMEA ESG bond issuance ◆ Leaner, meaner SLL market The SSA bond market has enjoyed its fair share of eye-catching relative value inversions of late. Last year, the likes of Portugal and Spain began trading tighter than France in the European government bond market, for example. But after US president Donald Trump got his budget voted through on Thursday, it could be about to...

Send us a text ◆ SSA market faces up to escalating defence funding ◆ Arms company bonds in focus ◆ Slovenia's landmark SLB As Nato members agreed — mostly — to ramp up their defence funding to 5% of GDP over the next decade, we asked the SSA bond market how it would handle the extra funding that it will need to provide for that end. Some Nato members don't even meet the old target of 2% of GDP, so this week's declaration made at the alliance's summit in the Hague was quite t...

Send us a text ◆ Issuance abounds despite Iran-Israel escalation ◆ European securitization regulatory proposals unveiled ◆ A digital first for sovereign bonds If you only consumed mainstream news, the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran — and potentially the US — might lead you to assume that such global turmoil would make it a bad time to be issuing debt. But if you only observed the capital markets to the exclusion of all wider news, you'd be forgiven for thinking the wo...

Send us a text ◆ How can the EU capitalise on US mistakes? ◆ New US insurers head to euros ◆ The greenest of green The good and the great of Europe's capital markets gathered for the International Capital Market Association conference this month, and the overwhelming consensus among the speakers was that this was a rare chance for Europe to chip away at US bond market dominance. But it won't be easy, with myriad regulatory and idiosyncratic problems that can only come when 27 countries ...

Send us a text ◆ How worrying is Section 899? ◆ A summer of toil for public sector issuers ◆ Seesawing curves in FIG The bland outpourings of ChatGPT could not be further from the penetrating, critical advice big companies, governments and investors want from investment banks. But could one foster the other? That is the ideal banks are striving for with a plethora of projects to use artificial intelligence — not for the hard stuff, they say, but for the easy stuff. Automating tiresome work l...

Send us a text ◆ EU’s securitization plan leaked ◆ The first new EM sovereign issuer for years ◆ Who can be sued for climate change? Interest rates coming down was supposed to be a sure bet. Now it’s not. Long government bond yields are rising, and not just in the US. Investors are worried — the term premium is climbing, which means it’s not enough now. It’s safest to stay away from duration. We try to diagnose this queasy market for high quality bonds. Are there any silver linings? MLex, a ...

Send us a text ◆ Capital markets' Bloomberg scare ◆ SSAs tipped to go sub-US Treasuries ◆ Jumbos devour credit demand A blip in Bloomberg's terminal services this week delayed bookbuilding on a number of syndications and bond auctions. It passed with seemingly little harm done. But it did reveal how dependent bond issuance and fixed income has become on the company's platform. We asked what would be at stake if there was a longer outage and what can be done to prevent...

Send us a text ◆ What happened at the EBRD's Annual Meetings ◆ Romania's new president and the fiscal fright that awaits him ◆ Investors distracted from FIG by US corporates GlobalCapital was on the ground at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's Annual Meetings in London this week. We reveal what was discussed and decided, from the bank's capital situation and US involvement, to its support for Ukraine and beyond. Meanwhile, Romania goes to the polls this weekend...

Send us a text ◆ US gives further clues on MDB support ◆ FIG issuers face funding choices ◆ What's the point of the EU green bond standard? We surveilled the SSA bond market this week and the development finance world to see what both made of US decisions about financial support for a number of international development funders. The result was relief but it was not unqualified, as we ponder what this may mean for US president Donald Trump's review into the country's involvement in...

Send us a text ◆ SLBs miss targets with hundreds more up for review ◆ US issuers make hay in European sunshine ◆ Banks probe longer dated debt issuance The wave of sustainability-linked bonds that were all the rage a few years ago are now reaching the point where their issuers' performance against their environmental KPIs is being judged. Two issuers this week have failed to meet their targets and will pay higher coupons as a result. We took the opportunity to see what impac...

Send us a text ◆ Insiders assess Scott Bessent's speech on MDB reform ◆ European Commission's latest attempt to ease capital market access ◆ Encouraging signs for credit issuers after tariff turmoil The US administration gave some clues as to its beliefs on how the IMF and the World Bank should change their operations for the first time this week since president Donald Trump signed an executive order in February asking for a review into the country's involvement in international f...

Send us a text ◆ Running a bond business in a crisis ◆ Bank issuers find their way back into the bond market ◆ Can frontier emerging market sovereigns fund themselves? This was supposed to be a decent year for banks in the debt and equity capital markets. But the uncertainty generated by a chaotic US tariff policy has wrecked investment banks' ability to plan and operate in their markets. We look at what is grinding the sell-side's gears and investigate how banks should navigate t...

Send us a text ◆ Did we come close to a full blown crisis before Trump's tariff climbdown? ◆ Will we face another in 90 days' time? ◆ UK regulator's astonishing covered bond ruling We looked this week into whether the US's decision to postpone the imposition of punishing tariffs by 90 days averted a financial crisis, or merely postponed it. The action in the US Treasury market was not good this week as investors and traders appeared to pile into cash rather than assets. Stock mar...

Send us a text ◆ How US tariffs will affect bond issuers in the medium and long term ◆ Liberation Day: your funniest quotes ◆ A funding update from KfW's head of capital markets, Petra Wehlert US president Donald Trump's imposition of a vast swathe of tariffs on imports bludgeoned stock markets this week and proved the stuff of nightmares for investors as they contemplated the possibility of recession and the return of inflation. But the reality for the bond market will likely be rather...

Send us a text ◆ Farewell, KommuneKredit ◆ Covered bonds advance on SSAs’ territory ◆ Ivory Coast makes funding breakthrough ◆ Romania’s risks Genuinely useful applications of AI are still rare in capital markets, but UniCredit has come up with an intriguing one. It has built a tool called DealSync that is helping it generate M&A mandates. The supranational, sovereign and agency bond market was shocked on Wednesday to learn that it would be losing a well known issuer, KommuneKredit. The ...