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

Bank's head of DCM and syndicate chief talk bond market expansion plans

Loans bankers wary of potential overbuilding amid Europe data centre growth

Scope of UK regulation set to be more restricted than EU equivalent

German government will spend €108bn on military next year

Taxonomy alignment and credible transition plans could be more important for issuers

First-of-its-kind opinion lays out World Bank, ADB and shareholders’ obligations under international law

First exclusively Estonian securitization the European Investment Bank has supported

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

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

The European IPO market is continuing to churn out deals, but a return of volatility in secondary equity markets is starting to cause discomfort among syndicate bankers, who say they must proceed with caution in the weeks ahead.

Debt purchasing firms are repeatedly hitting the high yield market to prepare their capital structures for the likely wave of portfolio sales as pandemic support schemes roll off, with France’s iQera the latest in the market. But some companies in the sector are in no position to refinance, such as Lowell which is effectively shut out of the market with its own credit concerns, raising questions about whether these companies can compete for post-Covid loan sales.

Norway’s Ministry of Finance has said it will apply tighter mortgage lending standards from next week after temporarily loosening them to support the economy. The move, which was not unexpected in light of the resilient state of the economy and stubbornly high house price inflation, will minimise mortgage defaults.