The Big Interview

Private credit specialist sees sharp growth in direct lending, but questions the efficacy of using IRR figures to judge a fund's performance

In October La Banque Postale became the first bank to announce it was exiting fossil fuels altogether, and the first to have a validated Science-Based Target for decarbonising its portfolio. Philippe Heim, the bank’s CEO, talked to GlobalCapital about what this path will involve, and LBP’s wider drive to create ‘impact banking’.

Jingdong Hua, the treasurer of the World Bank, announced his retirement this week, marking the end of an illustrious career spanning across various development finance institutions in different continents where he witnessed several crises. GlobalCapital spoke to Hua about his career, the Covid-19 pandemic and his passion for multilateralism.

Natixis's co-head of its corporate and investment bank tells GlobalCapital how Groupe BPCE has turbo charged his firm's ability to take on more business as it looks to expand into new sectors and markets

Hayes claims the banks knew exactly what the traders were doing and that his sentence was an 'absolute joke'

"We want to use this change of structure and these new leadership roles to foster this multi-product solutions mentality," Pete Mason tells GlobalCapital

KfW has had a strong start to 2021, raising over €50bn in the first six months of the year — around two thirds of its target. The agency will face new challenges in the latter half of the year, particularly in the form of the European Union’s colossal Next Generation funding programme. But treasurer Tim Armbruster, and head of capital markets Petra Wehlert are confident they can navigate the new landscape.

Natasha Harrison, the heir apparent to fabled law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, told GlobalCapital that while she was not expecting a collapse in corporate credit coming out of the coronavirus, there will be big opportunities for sophisticated distressed debt investors.

Antonio Cordero Gomez, chief financial officer of Instituto de Crédito Oficial, spoke to GlobalCapital about the need for continued innovation in the world of ESG labelled bonds, and about Ico’s role in fighting the economic consequences of coronavirus.

Former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Flynn co-founded credit fund manager Hayfin in 2009, with the global financial crisis of 2007-08 already in the rear view mirror. Having steered his firm through the European alternative credit market's first major test, he talked to GlobalCapital about how funds are managing their way through the Covid-19 crisis and whether their performance will attract more investors into the asset class.

Leaving investment banking to join the world of impact investing and environmental NGOs is not something people do lightly. But having made that move a decade ago, Keith Tuffley has been tempted back, to help shape the response of Citigroup’s investment bank to the accelerating rise of sustainability.

The Pfandbrief market is in the middle of a tumultuous year which includes not only the adoption of the EU's Covered Bond Directive but also digesting the bloc's Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. Of course, this is all happening against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns, which have hit the commercial real estate market that underpins much of the product. Jens Tolckmitt, chief executive of the Association of German Pfandbriefbanks (vdp), spoke to GlobalCapital about how the market has coped.