Issues

Record euro issuance cost issuers slimmer new issue premiums than before as a wave of Reverse Yankee issuance, much of it to fund technology and artificial intelligence infrastructure, and a softer sterling market defined Europe’s investment grade corporate bond market in 2025, writes Diana Bui

A booming 2025 investment grade corporate bond market in Europe set a high bar as investors brace to pay higher premiums and shift to the belly of the curve in 2026. Meanwhile, capex, M&A and Reverse Yankees look set to keep the pipeline full, write Diana Bui and Frank Jackman

Single asset, single borrower deals drove the US CMBS market in 2025, particularly on New York City collateral as office attendance rose. With interest rates predicted to fall further in 2026, market participants are looking forward to a greater variety of deals on commercial real estate from other cities and sectors, writes Pooja Sarkar

Rising aircraft values and higher re-leasing costs caused by a supply shortage are expected to tip cash into aviation ABS and entice debut issuers in 2026. As cash runs down the waterfall, sales of equity notes tied to aviation lease ABS may return, writes Chadwick Van Estrop

Unparalleled European CLO market activity in 2025 compressed spreads and raised the possibility of a bigger standard for benchmark size. But, as Thomas Hopkins reports, leveraged loan market volatility will increasingly lead to tiering in the pricing different managers can achieve

The conditions are set so that 2026 promises to be even better than the already impressive 2025. A deepening of esoteric asset classes, combined with entirely new deal types, as well as more debut issuers are set to be the key themes, writes Tom Hall

The euro covered bond market shook off a volatile end to 2024 to rebound with a raft of exceptionally popular deals in 2025. Investors appeared eager to pile into euro covered bond books this year, propelling bid-to-cover ratios upwards and new issue premium downwards, writes Frank Jackman

Covered bond funders will have to weave their way through tight senior unsecured and wide SSA spreads in 2026 if they are to refinance the wave of redemptions that awaits them. One big question for the year ahead, discovers Frank Jackman, is whether issuers will be tempted to pay up for duration

Issuers had it almost all their own way in the European FIG market in 2025. Investor appetite for credit far outstripped supply, causing spreads to tighten along with the average new issue premium on syndicated benchmark-sized deals. Flynn Nicholls reports on the dynamics that shaped the primary market

The European FIG market rode through 2025 on high demand for credit, providing bank issuers, large and small, with extremely advantageous funding conditions. Although investors have also benefitted from strong secondary market performance, as Atanas Dinov reports, that equilibrium may change in 2026, with anticipation mounting that spreads will widen

One of the key numbers for the SSA bond market is the EU’s borrowing need, published twice a year. The borrower has become one of the largest in the market, issuing €160bn of bonds in 2025, with a similar amount expected in 2026. It anticipates €700bn of funding needs between 2025 and 2030 in support of the various programmes it funds, including for NextGenerationEU. Now it has a new one: a €150bn instrument, which will disburse money to member states for defence in 2026. Siegfried Ruhl (pictured), hors classe adviser to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Budget, and Balazs Ujvari, Commission spokesperson for budget and administration, spoke to GlobalCapital’s Ralph Sinclair about the issuer’s path ahead in the bond market.

Public sector bond issuers navigated what turned out to be a sometimes volatile year in 2025 with aplomb. Many frontloaded issuance to derisk large borrowing programmes which stood them in good stead when choppier markets developed in response to US tariff policy and French political upheaval over its deficit, to name but two influences. Funding requirements among supranationals and agencies may prove little changed for the year ahead, but a host of factors are already visible that will influence how this group of borrowers approaches the bond market in 2026. Chief among them is the tightness of spreads to government bonds but there are others: further elevated government borrowing to fund defence and possibly even a new entrant to the market to raise money for that purpose; the evolving market for ESG investment; digitalisation of the bond market; and the rotation out of US Treasury holdings by international investors. GlobalCapital gathered a number of the SSA market’s key issuers in London in November to discuss how they will set about meeting these challenges.