Dutch bank ING Group said it has scrapped the sale of its Russian business to Global Development JSC because there was "no realistic expectation" that the deal agreed 14 months ago would go ahead.

BNP Paribas has appointed a new head of its Gulf debt capital markets business.

US president Donald Trump loves a weekend social media post, repeatedly divulging market-moving information on these supposed days of rest ever since ordering US forces to start bombing Iran on February 28, the last Saturday of the month.

Convulsions in global bond markets dealt a blow to banks’ interest rate trading desks in March following the outbreak of the Iran war, inflicting losses on some and taking the shine off what had otherwise promised to be another stellar quarter for macro traders.

FIG issuers priced €3.75bn of euro covered bonds on Wednesday as borrowers leapt into a market buoyed by Tuesday's geopolitical developments.

KfW has revealed that more than half of the record-breaking €49.7bn order book for its 10-year syndication in January was so-called 'fast money' demand, underscoring the growing influence of those accounts in the SSA market.

Poland brought the first high-grade public new issue from CEEMEA since the war in the Middle East with a well-timed execution.

Clariane has become the first European high-yield issuer to jump into the market after the ceasefire between the US and Iran boosted market sentiment and opened a window for further deals. 

European securitisation markets are showing early signs of a post-Easter revival, with a debut transaction from Advanzia Bank set to reopen primary markets, market participants said. 

The European Banking Authority said in a Q&A posted on its website that a credit rating can only be used to calculate regulatory risk weights if it is publicly disclosed, clarifying an issue debated by market practitioners. 

ClearLight is preparing its first solar securitization in what has been a slow start to the year in this corner of the ABS market. 

KKR is hitting the commercial mortgage-backed security market to refinance an office tower in San Francisco that was once the headquarters for Dropbox, which has vacated the premises and been replaced by a roster of other corporate tenants.

Eurofima made good use of a relief rally following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran.

ClimateWise, an insurance grouping on climate and nature-related risks that is approaching 20 years of operation, has named Ian Branagan of RenaissanceRe and Tokio Marine Kiln’s Vivek Syal as co-chairs.

French private debt and equity firm Eurazeo's Planetary Boundaries fund has secured more than half of its €750m target, which it intends to keep in place as fundraising continues. 

Germany's KfW, one of the world's largest green bond issuers, printed €14bn of green bonds in 2025 and expanded its range of issuing currencies. 

Major shareholder Hanwha will hold 93% of the shares of Norwegian building materials business REC Silicon following completion of a NKr976.2m (US$102.6m) rights issue that elicited little interest from other investors.

SK Hynix has hired Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to arrange an ADR listing, a person familiar with the matter said.

SpaceX expects to begin marketing its blockbuster IPO on June 8, the company outlined in a meeting with banks involved in the offering, one banker familiar with the process told IFR.

Atlas Energy Solutions responded to strong investor demand to raise an upsized US$390m from the sale of a five-year convertible bond, providing the oilfield services company low-cost capital to fund its pivot to power generation for AI.

Syndicated lending in EMEA totalled US$309bn in the first quarter of 2026, 19% lower than in the first three months of 2025, according to LPC data, but the loan market remained resilient in the face of persistent geopolitical and economic headwinds.

Against the backdrop of volatility, induced by the war in the Middle East, the emergence of AI as a buzzword and its uncertain, potential impact across various industry sectors, as well as simmering headlines around private credit portfolios, US lenders ushered nearly US$779bn through the broadly syndicated loan market in the first quarter, a 6% decline compared to the first three months of 2025.   

Syndicated lending in G3 currencies in Asia Pacific ex-Japan plunged to a five-year low in the first three months of 2026, posting the lowest quarterly tally since the coronavirus pandemic as the conflict in the Middle East weighed heavily on global financial markets.  

Liquidity concerns are rising for non-traded business development companies as AI-driven fears over software-heavy portfolios spur withdrawals, though the vehicles can absorb about a year of 5% quarterly redemptions without forced sales, market participants say.

It is unusual for a listed company to buy income-bearing securities of a peer as a treasury decision. In orthodox corporate finance, surplus capital is meant to do one of three things: fund projects that clear the hurdle rate, preserve liquidity, or be returned to shareholders. It is not normally redeployed into another company exposed to much the same trade, especially at a lower yield than the investing company pays on its own stock.

Private credit mishaps are coming at us with such speed and intensity that many of the stories are blurring into one. But rather than the private credit crisis dragging banks down, it might give them an opportunity to play offensively in this space.

The easiest way to hide a credit loss is not to deny it. It is to say it has not yet arrived. That was one of the quiet accounting failures exposed by the global financial crisis: losses were often recognised too late, only after the damage was obvious. IFRS 9 was supposed to fix that by forcing lenders to book expected credit losses earlier, using forward-looking judgment rather than waiting for the wreckage.

I played rugby as a schoolboy. I wasn’t too bad, playing for East Yorkshire a few times at under-16 level. My position was scrum-half, which meant I had a lot of the ball. And being in the thick of things, one soon learns to be nimble and quick-thinking to avoid being crushed by rampaging forwards.