GlobalCapital Leader

• Serious about green? Lagarde must ditch dirty debt

  Christine Lagarde, the new European Central Bank president, has planted a flag, placing climate change at the centre of the ECB’s priorities. That is bold — and laudable — but if the ECB is to have a meaningful impact, green QE is not enough. The ECB must divest its holdings of unsustainable assets.

  • 12 Dec 2019

• Basel III or IV? The ECB will decide

  The European Central Bank has the power to decide the ultimate impact of the Basel III rules in Europe.

  • 12 Dec 2019

• US PP market: hold firm on covenants

  Certain US private placement (PP) investors are beginning to fear a turn in the famously prudent market, towards a world with looser financial covenants. Let us hope this remains a fear and does not become reality.

  • 05 Dec 2019

• Tory win offers false hope

  While capital markets professionals might be preparing to pop champagne corks in the expectation of a Conservative Party victory in the UK’s general election on December 12, they should remember that the government’s key policy is appalling for the UK.

  • 05 Dec 2019

• The green debt-to-equity attention swap

  Sorry, banks and green bond specialists, it is not all about you. It is time to focus on green equity as well.

  • 28 Nov 2019

• Europe HY turning worryingly eccentric

  Central bank money is flooding into bonds, making the European high yield market a bizarre place where a double-B rated issuer can pay a coupons of less than 1%. That is attracting first-time issuers with risky, opaque businesses who are getting away with offering scant investor protection.

  • 28 Nov 2019

• Climate emergency: all hands to the pump

  Axa’s proposal this week that the European Union should create a €500bn joint borrowing vehicle for climate change could easily be dismissed as pie in the sky. So it is, for now.

  • 21 Nov 2019

• Bank investors: taking positives from negatives

  Bank bondholders should feel pretty good about the challenges facing the financial sector heading into the new decade.

  • 21 Nov 2019

• A more fiendish problem than Libor

  With just two years to go until the Financial Conduct Authority relinquishes its control of Libor, the road to creating robust alternatives is still under construction.

  • 14 Nov 2019

• Green fashion victims

  It has been another week of firsts in the still nascent sustainability-linked financing world, but some of the targets lenders are agreeing with their borrowers for cheaper loans seem to have little to do with sustainability.

  • 14 Nov 2019

GlobalCapital Leader archive