The Big Interview

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.

As its debt-to-GDP ratio inflates and its public finances come under pressure, some have wondered if Tunisia will succumb to a debt restructuring process. But the governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia, Marouane El Abassi, told GlobalCapital that the country is intent on securing new IMF funding as a prerequisite to entering capital markets.

Neoen, the French renewable energy company, completed a €600m rights issue at the start of April to help fund it until 2025. Its CFO, Louis-Mathieu Perrin, spoke to GlobalCapital about the deal and explained how green equity stories can still win investors’ attention, despite a recent cooling off in stock valuations.

Kenneth Lay, chair of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), is no stranger to using financial innovation to help tackle some of the world's biggest problems. He spoke to GlobalCapital about the importance of IFFIm as a vehicle to finance the global vaccine rollout in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Ukraine is once more at the forefront of emerging market investors' worries as military tensions with Russia escalate. Amid the uncertainty, Ukraine is fighting another uphill battle to access IMF funding in order to recover its economy as soon as possible. The governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Kyrylo Shevchenko, spoke to GlobalCapital about the challenges the country is facing and the importance of central bank independence.

Semrush, the Boston-headquartered marketing software company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange last month during a tricky time for the IPO market. CFO Evgeny Fetisov talks to GlobalCapital about the IPO and the challenges in taking the firm public.

Fix Price, the Russian discount retailer, became a public company at the beginning of March in a $1.9bn IPO on the London Stock Exchange. Its CFO Anton Makhnev sat down with GlobalCapital to discuss the deal.

One big crisis should be enough for anyone's career. But Sir Robert Stheeman, chief executive of the UK's Debt Management Office, has had to face two monumental financial catastrophes in the last 13 years — first the 2008 UK banking crisis and then last year's pandemic.