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Hungary’s improving score in recent years prompted ECR in April to highlight the potential for the sovereign’s upgrade. Five months later, on September 16, rating agency S&P did just that.

Poland’s declining risk score trend in Euromoney’s survey signals the rating agency is lagging experts in the field.

The borrower will not challenge Indian safety for the foreseeable future, but faith in the emerging market (EM) is justified by its improving risk score.

2016 is expected to be another record year for green bond issuance. Here Mirko Gerhold, Head of DCM Bonds Solutions at Commerzbank, explains the evolution and benefits of the green bond sector. He also looks ahead to the trends expected in the next two to three years and how issuers and investors can benefit in this growing market.

While the focus has been on how Italy must resolve its banking sector problems, investors should also be keeping an eye on the risks lurking elsewhere in Europe.

Uncertainty is increasing for peso assets as the fight for the White House heats up. Even a victory for Hillary Clinton comes with reservations attached, demonstrating how it is not just the possibility of Donald Trump winning that is ringing alarm bells.

Country-by-country assessments of Europe’s banking sector show that risks are at new highs, as the financial services industry struggles to cope with the aftershocks of the 2007/08 crisis. Resolving the Italian bank crisis is key to how it will all pan out.

Euromoney’s survey shows the UK’s risk score falling in the wake of the shock referendum decision coming out in favour of a withdrawal from the European Union. The risk experts acknowledge the potential longer-term positives, the swift changes shoring up political stability, and the opportunities created by the pound depreciating. They are nevertheless concerned by the economic outlook and its impact on the fiscal metrics.

From our extensive time in debt capital markets, we’ve come across plenty of myths and misconceptions about corporate funding. But equally there are certain golden rules that hold true for almost every issuer, whatever their size or profile. Here we’ve gathered 10 universal truths that we hope will help guide any finance director looking to raise funding via DCM loans or bonds.

With yields across much of the developed world entrapped in an apparently endless downward spiral, investor attention is once again focusing on the potential of emerging market (EM) debt. Cristian Maggio, global head of emerging markets strategy at TD Securities, explains that it is not just the relatively high yields available in the asset class that is attracting renewed investor interest. Following a lengthy period of underperformance, there are several compelling drivers of rising investor confidence in the longer term prospects for EM.

Citi Research has released a detailed report combining its own econometric model with the output from Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey to yield a new, more powerful tool for identifying default probabilities and relative value for sovereign issuers.

When TD Securities was appointed as the 22nd primary dealer in the US in February 2014, it represented an important landmark in the evolution of TD Securities’ global capital market franchise, underscoring its long-term commitment to the world’s largest and most liquid fixed income market. John Moore, head of US and international fixed income, says that the firm’s increasingly prominent position in the US capital market builds on the fast-growing footprint of its parent, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank) across the US banking sector.

After a strong start to the year, liability management activity came to a halt following the ECB’s announcement of its corporate sector purchase programme, prompting questions as to how this latest stimulus package will affect the market. Despite the slowdown, however, there is reason to believe an uptick in activity is on the horizon, according to UniCredit’s Liability Management team.

Issuers and investors have had to get used to an environment of heavily negative swap spreads in the US market during the last six months. Swap spreads have come back from the tightest levels seen before Christmas, however intraday volatility and big swings in the shape of the swap spread curve continue to provide a challenging backdrop for SSA issuers and investors to navigate

The recent performance of the province of British Columbia’s economy provides a compelling lesson in the long-term benefits of diversification. At a time when the Canadian economy has been negatively impacted by weakness in commodity prices, BC has established itself at the top of the country’s provincial growth rankings

The past few years have seen substantial activity in Germany’s Schuldschein market. With bond markets roiled by volatility and negative yields, many investors — including an increasing number of international players — are seeing Schuldscheine as an attractive alternative, and 2016 looks set to be one of the market’s biggest years yet, says Rudolf Bayer¬, Managing Director, and Jörg Stührwohldt, Managing Director, at UniCredit.

The sterling SSA primary bond market is set to have a record breaking first quarter in terms of issuance volumes, which currently stand at £12.25bn. There have been a number of notable deals from inaugural issuers and those returning to the market after a long break, but also regular issuers have achieved much bigger volumes. From the demand side, the breadth of participation has also been apparent, with the three big investor bases — central banks, bank treasuries and UK real money — all participating in good size. We look into the reasons why and whether it will continue.

Act now before the nuisance becomes a real headache!

Commerzbank’s Michael Weigerding looks at trends in the covered bonds market for the year ahead

Even by the standards of today’s fast-changing regulatory environment, the new OTC variation margin requirements due to be introduced from March 2017 pose a major challenge to sell-side and buy-side alike. Asset managers will face major operational burdens and risks as they prepare to comply; the scale of which may not yet be fully appreciated.

What should you be asking?

Commerzbank Corporates & Markets examines the benefits of leasing in corporate finance

After surpassing several milestones in 2015, the covered bond market should be set for another record-breaking year in 2016. Bill Thornhill talks to Société Générale CIB’s head of covered bond origination, Ralf Grossmann, and the bank’s senior covered bond research analyst, Cristina Costa, about their predictions and recommendations for the forthcoming year.

Europe gains traction on domestic demand: we like risky assets and see limited euro downside

Commerzbank Corporates and Markets reviews European IPO activity

Since the 2008 financial crisis, for a number of years subdued activity in IPOs was believed to be the norm on Italian exchanges. Yet since 2014, political and economic trends are changing the script — prompting a boom in Italian IPO activity, according to Stefania Godoli, global head of equity capital markets at UniCredit.

Commerzbank Corporates & Markets outline the current attraction of the High Yield Bond Market