The sick ECM of Europe

Arm gave the UK equity capital markets a slap this week when it opted to list in New York rather than the celebrated microchip designer’s home exchange in London, despite huge efforts to persuade it to do otherwise. It has prompted a lot of soul searching about the state of the UK as a listing venue but we question if things are really that bad, or if the UK is even being judged against the right peers.

There has also been a resurgence in corporate green bond issuance as the market starts to find fault in sustainability-linked bonds. We look at what is driving the trend back to the OG of ESG-themed securities and what companies’ labelled funding mixtures will look like in future.

One of the biggest problems in global development is the mobilisation of private capital. We report this week on how a new fund is looking to solve the problem and what other solutions the capital markets have come up with to bridge what some reckon is a $2.6tr gap that needs to be bridged for the world to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Finally, we investigate the telecoms sector, which promises to be a big source of lending activity for banks in Europe this year if only something would stop holding it up.