NEWSLETTER of August 21, 2026

The following content has been added at finexpert:

European Banking Federation | Oliver Wyman
EUROPEAN BANK COMPETITIVENESS: ENABLING BANKS TO PLAY A GREATER ROLE FINANCING EUROPEAN GROWTH
Europe requires an estimated €1.4 trillion of additional investment annually, equivalent to around 7% of GDP, particularly in digitalisation, energy, defence and industrial transformation. Yet the report finds that European banks face regulatory, supervisory and market-fragmentation constraints while alternative financing channels remain comparatively underdeveloped. It proposes seven measures spanning bank capital, securitisation, the Savings and Investments Union and cross-border integration to expand Europe's financing capacity without compromising resilience. >more

KPMG
PULSE OF PRIVATE EQUITY Q2'26
KPMG's quarterly report reviews private equity activity globally and across the major regions. For Europe, the Middle East and Africa, PE-announced activity over the four quarters through Q2 2026 amounted to $782 billion across 8,732 transactions. The report discusses the region's deal environment, exits and fundraising and highlights major European transactions, including Volkswagen's agreement to sell a majority stake in Everllence to Bain Capital. >more

Houlihan Lokey
EUROPEAN REAL ESTATE MARKET UPDATE – SUMMER 2026
European real estate investment volumes reached approximately €177 billion in 2025, an increase of 10% year on year, with the UK, France and Germany accounting for almost half of activity. The report sees a stabilising German market but expects higher-for-longer interest rates to limit further yield compression, shifting the return focus towards rental growth and net operating income. Europe-focused fundraising rose by roughly 20% to around €35 billion, while selected German transactions and refinancings illustrate the gradual reopening of capital markets. >more

KfW Research
RISING ENERGY AND RAW-MATERIAL COSTS ARE POWERFUL DRIVERS OF ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
Based on a representative survey of German companies that introduced environmental innovations between 2021 and 2023, KfW finds that 67% cite rising energy or raw-material costs as a motive. The figure rises to 78% for firms implementing process innovations, whereas product innovation is more strongly shaped by regulation and customer demand. The results show how cost pressure, standards and predictable regulation jointly influence corporate investment in greener production processes and products in Germany. >more

THE COV-LITE LIQUIDITY ADVANTAGE, REGULATORY PRESSURES, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEVERAGED LOAN MARKET
Robert Prilmeier and René M. Stulz
2026
Following the global financial crisis (GFC), regulators made it harder for banks to retain leveraged loan exposure. We conjecture their actions increased the share of leveraged loan issuances with no maintenance covenants (cov-lite loans) because such loans are easier to sell. We find that, post-GFC, the share of cov-lite loan issuance increased more for banks facing stricter regulation, failing to pass a stress test outright, or exhibiting greater vulnerability to the severely adverse stress test scenario. We show that, as expected from theory, cov-lite loans have a liquidity advantage that lowers their credit spread and is higher for private firms. >more

WHO INITIATES TAKEOVERS?
B. Espen Eckbo, Oyvind Norli, and Karin S. Thorburn
2026
Who initiates a takeover process determines whether observed firm and CEO characteristics reflect participation in a transaction or the endogenous decision to start one. We hand-classify initiation for 4,636 US takeover bids over 1996–2016, the largest such sample to date, and compare targets and public acquirers with matched non-merging firms. Targets initiate as much as 55% of classified deal processes, either alone (43%) or jointly (12%). Conditioning on initiation changes the interpretation of prominent CEO-age effects: retirement-age target CEOs are no more likely to initiate a sale; instead, bidders disproportionately approach firms led by CEOs nearing retirement. Target initiation is positively associated with vested CEO equity but strongly negatively associated with unvested equity. These and other findings show that standard takeover correlations conflate selection into deals with the choice to initiate them. >more