With Latin America bond issuance smashing through its previous record, market participants think the peak has passed. A market tipped to turn tougher is the reason, which will make 2026 a year when issuers and bankers will have to earn every basis point, writes George Collard, with volumes expected to stay high

Falling interest rates, returning inflows and a wave of pandemic-era redemptions mean CEEMEA bond market participants have high expectations for 2026. This optimism comes after a record-breaking year for issuance — and by quite some margin — meaning that 2025 will be a tough act to follow, writes George Collard

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

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

The CEEMEA primary bond market in 2025 shattered the record for bond issuance by some distance. Investors flocked to buy ahead of US interest rate cuts, meaning the market was open to just about every issuer. It is hard to find too many deals that were not a success, making this the pick of a very large crop

Investment grade companies demonstrated just how much liquidity was sloshing around in the euro, dollar, sterling and Swiss franc markets with a string of large deals. But these bonds did not just stand out for the amount issued. Rather, they showed that there is not always a trade-off to be made between size and price

An environmental activist institute has argued that the bookrunners of a Korea National Oil Corp $700m bond priced on Tuesday are being inconsistent with their own climate policies, and might even be taking legal risks, because of the issuer's exposure to tar sands oil production in Canada.

Korea National Oil Corp’s (KNOC) quasi-sovereign credentials helped drive demand for its $700m bond on Monday, its first international debt transaction of the year.

Deliveroo, the UK food delivery company, has taken heed of investor fears of IPO congestion and has revised its the price range of its listing down to the bottom end of the range.

The financial markets’ stance on climate change has taken a stride forward as 43 asset managers with $23tr of assets including some of the biggest such as BlackRock and Vanguard have joined the Net Zero Asset Managers’ Initiative. A critical mass of investors is now committed to reducing carbon emissions in their portfolios to zero, meaning that companies can be in no doubt which way they have to go if they want to maximise their potential investor base.

The polite world of sustainable finance has collided with the ugly reality of politics in the past week, as open strife has broken out over the European Union’s sustainable finance legislation, especially the Taxonomy. Conservative and progressive elements are battling over a host of issues, above all whether gas power should ever be classed as sustainable, and the validity and even legality of the Taxonomy is being called into question.

A leaked letter from the European Parliament, seen by GlobalCapital, shows the Parliament has joined in the debate about the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, which has been watered down to make life easier for institutional investors. The Parliament is calling for the rules to be strengthened, to help savers know which investments are green and ensure compliance does not become just a “tick box exercise”.

Debt financing to become more sophisticated as the race to build data centres across Europe heats up

JP Morgan sole bookrunner on first jumbo block in a month

This week Tom Hall and Thomas Hopkins discuss how Enpal's return heated up the ABS market and take the CLO equity market's temperature

Company's relationship banks provided the funding

UK chancellor got the big things right in the Budget but made damaging unforced errors

Emerging markets are particularly vulnerable to protests led by disgruntled youth

Artificial intelligence is everywhere — but what is it doing? Capital market specialists think about it constantly, even if only because they are told to, with feelings ranging from delight to horror. Market participants are exploring myriad ways both to use AI, writes Jon Hay, and neutralise its risks

December is a strange time to be in the capital markets. Embrace it

This week a managing director deals with the awkwardness of their boss finding out they had been in contention for a job at another firm

First deal of its kind more than 1.5 times subscribed

Deal complexity, new issuer premium sees trade start more than 100bp wide of last WBS

Gym franchise wants to refinance paper issued in 2022