Surging covered bond issuance that is printed only for repo at the central bank and official sector purchases means that the asset class is now less relevant for market funding purposes than ever before. If this continues, the systemic importance of the €2.7tr global market will be undermined just as efforts to develop it look to bear fruit.

GlobalCapital and Afme convened a virtual roundtable to tackle the biggest issues facing securitization as the pandemic crisis continues. While other capital markets and the wider economy are reeling from the economic fallout stemming from Covid-19, European securitization is undergoing a regulatory rejuvenation, as the European Commission turns towards structured products as a solution to the coming wave of NPLs. Meanwhile, the market for synthetic ABS is being given a second look to help free bank balance sheets across Europe and spur lending to the real economy. Over the summer, the market saw the report from the senior forum on the Capital Markets Union, which included a number of recommendations on regulatory adjustments to improve the functioning of securitization in Europe. More recently the European Commission put forward a capital markets economic recovery package including measures related to securitization. The Commission has proposed extending the STS framework to synthetic securitizations or on-balance-sheet securitizations. The Commission has also put forward proposals to remove regulatory obstacles to the securitization of NPLs including changes to the regulatory capital treatment.

In just a few days, two of the UK’s largest companies have had acquisition offers made for them by North American rivals. Heading into the 11th hour of a still chaotic Brexit process amid the highest national redundancy levels since the global financial crisis will have more foreign buyers circling yet.

Sir Ronald Cohen, the venture capitalist who chairs the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, on Tuesday called on governments to mandate companies to publish impact-weighted accounts.

Investors think that insurance companies will be able to deal with the cost of business interruption (BI) claims relating to Covid-19, even though the UK High Court found in favour of policyholders in a test case this week.

Gonzalo García and Anthony Gutman have been named as co-heads of the investment banking division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Goldman Sachs. They take on what is a new position.