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◆ UK government guns for growth but did it miss?

◆ French fancy: FIG in favour again

◆ Pandas and Wontons with the AIIB

After months of speculation, the UK government delivered its Autumn Budget this week. The country may have felt like it has been through the worst of times but are we about to enter the best of times? We pick through the policies to see how they will affect capital markets from IPOs to retail investment.

In the immediate future, market participants are tipping sterling bonds to appear from corporate issuers. We discuss the pipeline of deals to come.

We also discuss another country where there has been plenty of political intrigue and economic strife: France. A number of French banks recently came to the bond market with successful new issues. We examine what that tells us about investors' and issuers' view on French risk.

This episode of the GlobalCapital Podcast is sponsored by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In a special interview, we spoke to the bank's head of funding, Darren Stipe about its role in the Panda bond market, and it's creation of the nascent Wonton market.

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◆ Are investment bank bonuses going up this year, and when does everyone get paid?

◆ How the UK government's 'binary' Budget is affecting bank bond issuers

◆ Legal pressure builds on MDBs to reassess climate impact

The UK government's Budget announcement next week has been the source of rabid speculation for months. The uncertainty is affecting how banks in particular approach the sterling bond market to fund themselves. We explain the dynamics in play.

Meanwhile, an NGO in the US is applying pressure to multilateral development banks to change the way they assess energy project financing to consider environmental factors. We explain why the legal opinion the campaign has generated matters, what it says and how MDBs may react to it.

Finally, we investigate investment bank bonuses. We explain how the whole process works from initial discussions within a bank to when the cash and shares are paid and also discuss some of the shenanigans that go on at this time of year. We also share what our columnist Craig Coben had to say this week about how to successfully argue for better compensation.

UK Budget a ‘binary event’ for sterling FIG issuance

Law scholars shine spotlight on MDBs’ climate loopholes

Bonus time: who is expecting what and when

‘Please sir, I want some more’: why Oliver Twist will never make MD

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◆ Private credit, banks or securitization — which one is regulated too lightly?

◆ How AI capex will affect Europe's bond market

◆ What do defence bonds achieve?

Two senior UK bankers were in the House of Lords this week pleading for lighter regulation in the face of competition from private credit and their US rivals. One, Michael Roberts, the CEO of HSBC Bank plc and its CEO of corporate and institutional banking, even implied that securitization may be too lightly regulated as part of his argument. We discuss what he meant by that and debate whether private credit is a systemic risk that should face tougher standards

Bpifrance issued the first bond to carry the European Defence Bond label in the public sector bond market this week. The new label is finding its feet, so we question what it achieves, what it is missing and how it might catch on.

Finally, we gasped at the staggering amount of capex that big US tech firms want to do to fund AI spending. Some of it will be done in the European bond market through Reverse Yankee issuance. Market participants worry that this is bad news for European issuers. We examine why and whether they are right to fret.

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◆ Why Europe's corporate bond market is on a roll

◆ Reverse Yankees, hot hybrids and huge size with more to come

◆ Europe's stock exchanges' attempts to drum up more IPOs

Market participants had expected this week to be a busy one for euro and sterling investment grade corporate bond issuance. But the volume of business that was done exceeded all expectations.

With jumbo deals from the likes of Alphabet to successful offerings from less common credits like Brisbane Airport, benchmark issuance this week was almost four times the volume of the weekly average for the rest of this year. We examined why and discussed the factors that will keep the deal spree going deep into November.

Within that sector were also some notable hybrid deals in euros for US companies. We inspected these and divulged what is driving this market.

We also looked into what different European stock exchanges, and their regulators, are doing to boost not just the supply of public stock listings but also the demand.

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◆ Pause clauses could add to disaster arsenal

◆ KfW CEO Stefan Wintels on bond digitisation

◆ What ESG backlash? Banks ramp up green bond issuance

As Hurricane Melissa ripped through the Carribbean this week, the bond market had a part to play in helping Jamaica fund its recovery from the storm. That came in the form of a catastrophe bond, which we explain in detail, but we also discuss how sovereign debt could be tweaked in future to help stricken countries get by.

German promotional bank and leading bond issuer (not to mention recent GlobalCapital Podcast sponsor) KfW is an important player in the European economy and in global capital markets. Its CEO, Stefan Wintels, joined us to discuss the bank's role in the German economy as the country ramps up infrastructure and defence spending, Germany's green transition, and the digitisation of the bond market.

We also delved into why Europe's banks have recently boosted their issuance of green and other labelled bonds.

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◆ What is pushing CLO mezz wider

◆ FIG pre-funding underway

◆ What happened at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings

The CLO market is both subject to and affects what happens in leveraged loans, risking distortion in the latter. First, we discuss why the riskier bits of the CLO stack are trading wider. Then we delve into why CLOs give us cause to think that leveraged loan pricing may not purely reflect the credit quality of the borrowers.

If you like listening to GlobalCapital talking about securitization for free, be sure to listen to our dedicated podcast: Another Fine Mezz.

In the bank bond market, issuers are raring to pre-fund to get ahead of what may be a risk-laden 2026. We discuss the pitfalls that await, how issuers can mitigate them and why, contrary to what might normally be the case, covered bonds are not the way to do it.

Finally, we talked about the big issues that cropped up at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings this year, including how multilateral development banks operate and what happens to the ESG agenda when many of its biggest proponents show up for a week on climate naysayer US president Donald Trump's doorstep.

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◆ Holders win write-down ruling but path to recovery uncertain

◆ StrideUp brings Islamic innovation to UK securitization

◆ Emerging market bonds have an off-week (almost)

We picked apart a Swiss court ruling this week that overturned the country's financial regulator's decision in March 2023 to write-down Credit Suisse's additional tier one (AT1) paper.

The decision was controversial at the time because the AT1 holders came out worse from the collapse of Credit Suisse than shareholders — an upending of the traditional creditor hierarchy. But the ruling raises just as many questions as it answers about what investors are now due and who should pay it.

In the UK RMBS market, StrideUp is bringing an innovative deal that, if successful, could show a way to help finance the country's 4m Muslims' path to home ownership without them having to compromise their faith.

We explain how this Sharia-compliant securitization works and discuss whether it will catch on.

Finally, after smashing issuance volume records just last week, emerging market bond issuance dried up this week. We examine the causes but also unearth some bright spots in the primary market that give optimism for the weeks ahead.

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◆ Why buy bonds when spreads are so tight

◆ Using tech to unearth new economic signals

◆ Playing the shifting relative value pitch

This week, in an exclusive interview with world's largest investment manager, BlackRock, we discussed how much tighter credit spreads can go, what is driving it and how the company is adjusting to underlying shifts in relative value.

We also debated tech: whether digitalisation of the bond market is all it's cracked up to be for the buy-side and how BlackRock is using technology to find new economic signals to guide investment decisions — especially prevalent at a time when traditional sources, such as government publications, may be turning less representative and reliable.

We talked about all of this and more with Simon Blundell, BlackRock's head of European fundamental fixed income investments. BlackRock is the world's largest investment firm, running $12.5tr of assets.