Victoria Young and Georgiana Tudor assess the Magic Circle firm’s deal finance practice
‘Clifford Chance (CC)’s decline has been significant,’ one leading leveraged finance partner opines. ‘Ten years ago I would have pegged them as in the leading three or four in this space, but they are gently scaling down.’
Victoria Young assesses the advisers targeting the alt lending crowd
‘Almost every partner in our team is working on a direct lending mandate right now and that’s reflective of where markets are moving,’ notes White & Case partner Gareth Eagles. ‘It began as a niche, but it’s now a regular part of the funding mix. It’s not alternative finance. People said the Beatles were alternative in 1962 but they didn’t by 1966!’
Victoria Young reviews how global firms are positioning themselves to cash in on a market on the cusp
As the internationalisation of China’s currency continues, global firms are making much of the pioneering Yankee bond-style deals in the Chinese market, eyeing opportunities in the orient and beyond.
Continue reading “The Finance View: Global firms jostle for position in panda bond market”
Victoria Young assesses the approach to implementation of ring-fencing rules
Though the deadline for full implementation is over two years off, the looming threat of so-called ring-fencing reforms is already having a major impact on UK banking groups and their legal teams.
Victoria Young canvasses veteran lawyers on the outlook for bespoke financing in 2016.
It’s been flavour of the month for a lot of months now, but among leveraged finance advisers the conviction remains that 2016 will be another breakthrough year for alternative credit funds. Partners speaking to Legal Business say market conditions are ripe for such lenders, even as turbulence affects some larger sources of capital.
Victoria Young reports on the diverse mix of law firms looking to take advantage as finance meets technology
UK Economic Secretary Harriett Baldwin isn’t holding back on the government’s ambitions for the fintech industry in the UK.
‘We are already a major player in financial technology; our ambition is now to be the major player – the leading fintech centre in the world,’ she recently said, ahead of announcing reviews of so-called ‘robo-advisers’ – online wealth management services.
Securitisation lawyers have been hard pressed since the financial crisis, diversifying their practices and often even ditching the S word. Continue reading “The finance view: Bigger, simpler, cheaper? How to position the modern securitisation counsel”
Michael West assesses the impact of the ongoing rehabilitation of structured finance
Securitisation lawyers have been hard pressed since the financial crisis, diversifying their practices and often even ditching the S word. However, relief has been increasingly at hand in the last two years as the thinking of regulators and policy-makers has swung from seeing the financing tool as a cause of the banking crisis to key for getting more investment into the economy. Highlighting this shift at a speech to the Global ABS 2015 conference in Barcelona in June, the Bank of England’s executive director of prudential policy David Rule gave public backing to proposals to create EU-wide criteria for simple, standard and transparent (SST) products, a move he said would ‘play an essential role in de-stigmatising European securitisation, helping the market to develop on a sustainable track and attracting a broader investor base’.
