Comment EM and The Cover

It is common for a firm to have an association with an adjective. The description is often derogatory, so acquisitive companies are often said to be rapacious. For Glencore, the commonly used adjective is secretive.

If you’re thinking about getting hold of some bitcoin, you have 690 days to figure out what mining is. But if you don’t, you can still board the bitcoin boat, but it might turn out to be the Titanic.

Credit events often make headlines in the CDS market, for good or ill. But the ISDA Determinations Committee also makes other decisions, most often on succession events.

Corporate treasurers are sometimes portrayed as risk averse individuals who pore over financial models to deliver the safest funding for their companies. They do, however, also have a responsibility to raise those funds at the lowest cost. Pragmatism is a trait companies should value highly in a treasurer.

GlobalCapital's managing editor, Toby Fildes, asked a room full of bond issuers, underwriters and investors what was worrying them the most in capital markets at the start of the Global Borrowers and Investors Forum in London on Tuesday, June 19. Here are the results.

When Sanofi raised all €8bn of the funding it needed for its acquisitions of Ablynx and Bioverativ in March, much was made of how this showed the capability of the European market to take down large M&A financings. But if Europe is now so capable, why then did Bayer, one of Germany’s brightest corporate stars, take 75% of the €22bn of financing it needed to buy Monsanto from the US instead?

When bitcoin futures were launched in December last year, there was excitement, fear and outrage all at once. Critics, including the Futures Industry Association, piled pressure on to US derivatives regulator the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, demanding better safeguards for such products. Cheerleaders may see the asset class as a great way to earn big in markets dogged by low yields but the doubters, of which Byte Me is one, may yet be proven right.

Does it matter if a green bond becomes separated from the green assets that underlie it? The link keeps the issuer honest — but shouldn’t the green bond market be doing more than that?

A year on from the collapse Banco Popular, the public should have much greater transparency about the bank resolution process in Europe.

Cryptocurrencies had an incredible run last year, but for them to really hit the mainstream, their advocates should study the sort of old money institutions many of them oppose: central banks.

The European Commission’s target for having Banking Union in place by 2019 is looking increasingly like an impossible dream.

For much of 2017, corporate bond issuers could be relaxed about when they brought their deals to the market. However, investment bankers kept telling them to hurry up: the first movers would get the best terms.