The GlobalCapital Podcast

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 p...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 o...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 i...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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. ...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 pond...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 a...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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....

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 mar...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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 possibi...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ 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...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ UK fires starting pistol on digital Gilts ◆ SSA market absorbs EU defence funding detail ◆ Credit issuers adjust tactics The UK has begun a consultation as it looks to issue its first digital Gilt - to be called a DiGit. We discuss what the bond will look like and the UK's route to issuance. Elsewhere in the SSA bond market, participants took stock of further detail on how...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ DOGE threatens US CMBS recovery  ◆ Drill, baby, drill? Borrow, habibi, borrow  ◆ Cracks appear in European credit market Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the office... or rather back into commercial mortgage backed securities with offices as the collateral. No sooner has the US CMBS revival begun than US president Donald Trump's administration threatens to...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ EU puts forward €800bn plan◆ Germany screeches into U-turn on debt brake ◆ Bund yield soars 40bp   The spectre of European countries needing to massively increase spending on defence has haunted the capital markets ever since it became clear that US president Donald Trump was really thinking of drastically weakening US military support to Europe. It had already triggered a sell-...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ Rob Murray, the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank's creator, explains all  ◆ Why US must be involved  ◆ Three point strategy to augment defence spending The idea of a new multilateral bank to help fund defence spending in Europe has shifted to the fore in recent weeks.  European leaders are understood to be discussing the idea this week and a plan for one could be annou...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ German and European spending needs rile SSA market  ◆ GSE reform in the US, green reform in the EU  ◆ Saudi Arabia leads Gulf diversification out of dollars New German chancellor Friedrich Merz has a lot to tackle when he finally forms his coalition government. Much of it will involve spending more money, which has bond investors on alert for higher borrowing needs. LBBW's...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ German poll to have far-reaching consequences for bond market  ◆ UK water sector's capital markets tangle  ◆ Corporate issuance picks up in emerging markets Germany votes this weekend in a general election. Whatever the resulting coalition, fiscal matters will be top of their agenda. With the pressure on to raise defence spending but with the constraints of the country&apos...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ Using the bond market to boost European security  ◆ Africa nears sovereign debt stabiliser  ◆ Sterling's ESG problem With the new US government reasserting its belief that Europe needs to provide more of its own security this week, attention has turned once again to how to pay for it. We discuss the various ideas in play, from setting up a new multilateral development bank...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ Trump orders review of US involvement in multilateral development banks  ◆ What's driving Reverse Yankee issuance?  ◆ Deutsche Bank sparks new controversy in AT1 capital Among many of the executive orders Donald Trump has signed since he became US president for the second time was one which ordered a review of the country's involvement in international organisations. T...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ Why you got paid what you got paid ◆ Insider reveals what really goes on when bonuses are allocated  ◆ HSBC winds down M&A and ECM We lift the lid on how bonuses are allocated in investment banking from the top table to the lowliest analyst.  Our columnist, Craig Coben , who spent many years as a senior equities banker at Merrill Lynch and then Bank of America, has been thro...

Send us Fan Mail ◆ Riso and Ruhl on the development of the market's biggest new bond issuer  ◆ Beyond NextGeneration EU: can the bloc fund defence?  ◆ The campaign for sovereign-like borrower status The European Union is the highest profile bond issuer in the market. In response to the pandemic, it ramped up its borrowing to fund member states' recovery from the disaster, going from rais...