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Caffil’s debut Covid-19 bond issued this week has shown that the moribund public sector covered bond market can play a crucial role in financing the response to the coronavirus crisis. The deal implies that the hitherto dormant public sector programmes many issuers have set up across Europe have scope to be reactivated to provide stable long-term financing for debt-ridden regional borrowers.
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Deutsche Bank has regained its number one spot in its home market, but it was its traditional investment banking business that shone rather than investments made as part of the firm’s new Germany-focused strategy, writes David Rothnie.
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The ECB has, despite an early gaffe, decided that it is its job to close spreads after all — and for the most part, it is excelling in its task. But its attention is focused on the bond market and, as a result, those who rely on the money markets for short term funding are suffering.
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From Italian government bonds to fallen angels, nothing is junk unless the European Central Bank says so.
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Kookmin Bank’s move to print a dollar bond to raise money for Covid-19 relief shows that sovereigns, government-owned banks, agencies and multilateral development banks are not the only ones that can help tackle the pandemic. Privately-owned firms also have a big role to play in global stimulus efforts.
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Firms can spend vast amounts of time window-dressing their balance sheets to look the best they possibly can within the limits of reporting regulations. Within those limits, everything goes.
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Financial institutions with funding needs that are holding off in anticipation of better issuance conditions are doing it wrong. Waiting until the other side of earnings season to bring deals will likely prove a mistake.
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Canadian banks should be applauded for funding themselves in public with deals bought by real investors in a range of currencies at actual market clearing levels — astonishing though that may be for the many entitled European issuers that have shamelessly become accustomed to central bank funding.
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'We are all in this together' is not a view Europe’s investment banks will recognise when they compare themselves with their formidable US rivals, writes David Rothnie.
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Armies of wonks have spent the last 10 years dreaming up a panoply of bank capital tools, from additional tier one capital to MREL, to make sure “too big to fail” can never happen again. Next time, they claimed, private investors’ capital would be burnt in an orderly process, saving taxpayers from bailing out banks.