Storied emerging markets investor Mark Mobius, who served as a fund manager at Franklin Templeton Investments for more than 30 years, died aged 89 on April 15.

Morgan Stanley posted a record quarter in equities trading, keeping pace with rival Goldman Sachs.

Foreign direct investment in Ukraine could hit US$145bn in the next decade and international financial institutions could attract up to US$59bn in private co-investment, which could help meet more than one-third of its hefty reconstruction bill, Citigroup estimates.

Citigroup started the year off right, with a strong performance in trading and a record quarter in M&A advisory. 

Following two days of frenzied issuance, the FIG market took a breather on Thursday as just two issuers ventured out in senior format: Hypo Noe in euros and Royal Bank of Canada in sterling.

Canadian provinces took their turn to fund across the euro and US dollar markets on Thursday, joining a procession of well-bid syndications that SSAs have landed this week.

Human resources and recruitment company Adecco found the going tough for a hybrid issuance, with the challenge posed by AI to its business model limiting the pool of investors.

Turkey returned to the international bond market with a short-dated US dollar trade to make further headway on its US$13bn funding target for 2026.

The European ABS market was dominated by auto deals in the past week, with four issues, including a Swiss lease ABS, coming to market despite ongoing volatility from the war in Iran.

UK specialist lender Lendco is closing in on a successful return to the securitisation market with its latest buy-to-let transaction, as conditions in UK RMBS continue to demonstrate resilience despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.

US securitisation participants expect solid dealflow in the second quarter, even though the war in Iran that erupted six weeks ago has kept financial markets on edge. 

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

South Africa’s FirstRand Group has leapfrogged multilateral development and commercial banks by becoming the first market player to replicate the World Bank’s outcome bond structure .

Sustainable finance will play a central role in raising hundreds of billions of pounds of private capital over the next decade to fund the UK government's ambitious growth and infrastructure plans and help meet its net-zero targets. 

Global tech hyperscalers are exploring voluntary nature and biodiversity credits in the UK and Europe to offset the environmental impact of data centres, as well as mandatory credits to meet the UK's Biodiversity Net Gain regulation. 

The World Bank has stepped up its revived programme of Italian retail investor-targeted borrowing with its debut transaction through UniCredit. The Triple A rated development lender, which sourced lightly structured deals as large as US$668m and US$397m in the country during the 2010s, passing US$1bn in 2016 alone, issued €21.386m of fixed-rate callable notes through the Italian/German bank.

Madison Air Solutions raised US$2.23bn from its NYSE IPO late Wednesday on a fully sized deal priced at the high end of the marketing range, resisting the temptation to push too hard on valuation despite huge investor demand.

Seeds and crop protection powerhouse Syngenta Group is looking to file confidentially as early as June for its giant Hong Kong IPO, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Revolution Medicines raised an upsized US$2bn late Tuesday from a two-part sale of common stock and convertible debt, double the amount it was seeking and among the largest-ever equity-linked financings by a US biotechnology company.

Shenzhen-listed Eoptolink Technology, a maker of high-speed optical transceivers and components, is considering a Hong Kong listing which could raise at least US$3bn, said people with knowledge of the matter. 

Leveraged finance bankers are confident that demand is ready and waiting to meet supply, with momentum building behind LBO deals, although there is little pressure forcing issuers to move ahead with transactions.

The AIFMD II has come into effect, bringing a range of changes to the rules governing European private credit funds, with leverage limits in particular dividing opinion among fund managers. 

Paris-based Biscuit International is in the final stages of agreeing a debt extension with its lenders, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Chemicals firm Archroma has extended the deadline for its US$846m-equivalent first-lien term loan B and a US$200m second-lien TLB by more than a week, as investors seek more time to review documentation changes following intense negotiations, including around asset leakage protections.

Citigroup chief executive Jane Fraser manages a team of rivals who might aspire to her job. Competition is healthy but appointing a new president as a deputy could help Fraser deliver the next phase of her growth plan.

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.