NEWSLETTER of August 28, 2026

The following content has been added at finexpert:

EY
EY BANKENBAROMETER DEUTSCHLAND 2026
German banks are markedly more pessimistic about the economy while remaining confident in their own operating performance. Among the 100 institutions surveyed, only 17% expect the economic situation to improve over the next twelve months, whereas 56% anticipate deterioration. At the same time, 78% assess their current business performance positively and 76% expect a positive operating development. Credit risks are becoming a central concern: 93% foresee an increase and 63% expect more restrictive corporate lending. The study also examines consolidation, new revenue opportunities, regulation, cybersecurity and the use of generative AI in German banking. >more

Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME)
ESG FINANCE REPORT Q2 2026
European ESG bond and loan issuance reached EUR 204 billion in Q2 2026, up 28% from the previous quarter but 6% below the prior-year period. Green bonds remained the largest category, with issuance rising 29% year on year to EUR 109.6 billion, while sustainability-linked bond issuance fell sharply. France led European sustainable loan and bond origination in the first half of 2026 with EUR 95 billion, followed by Germany with EUR 59 billion. The report also tracks the growing use of the EU Green Bond Standard and the regulatory initiatives shaping Europe's sustainable-finance market. >more

Roland Berger
BEYOND THE DEAL COUNT: PRIVATE EQUITY IN THE DACH REGION – STATE OF THE REGION, H1 2026 UPDATE
Following a 15% increase in DACH transaction volumes in 2025, private equity activity reversed sharply in the first half of 2026: only 204 transactions were recorded, approximately 15% fewer than a year earlier. The report attributes slower deal conversion to geopolitical uncertainty, elevated financing costs, weaker target-company trading and more extensive due diligence. At the same time, larger and more complex transactions, industrial technology assets, alternative liquidity solutions and the systematic use of AI are reshaping investment and value-creation strategies across the more than 300 active PE funds in the DACH region. >more

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
ZEW FINANCIAL MARKET REPORT – AUGUST 2026
Financial-market experts' expectations for Germany improved further in August. The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment rose to 34.2 points from 26.3 in July, while the assessment of the current situation improved markedly to minus 61.1 points from minus 77.6. Strong corporate results, resilient exports and federal infrastructure spending supported confidence, although high energy prices, geopolitical risks and exceptionally low Rhine water levels remain important constraints. The report also reviews the economic outlook for the euro area, the United States and China and assesses expectations for German growth in 2026. >more

THE ECONOMICS OF INVESTOR ENGAGEMENT
Davidson Heath, Daniele Macciocchi, and Matthew C. Ringgenberg
2026
Investors engage with portfolio companies to communicate information and preferences, but the economic incentives behind these interventions remain difficult to quantify. Using a discrete-choice model and hand-collected stewardship reports, the authors find that engagement is driven primarily by financial considerations rather than reputation or marketing. Their estimates imply that USD 10,000 of engagement expenditure is associated with a 0.35-basis-point increase in firm value. Passive funds engage less because low fees reduce the share of value creation they can capture. Counterfactual analyses show that the effect of passive investing depends on how it grows: flows from active into passive funds can raise engagement-related value creation, whereas consolidation among passive managers reduces it. >more

MM, COASE, AND CORPORATE FINANCE
Harry DeAngelo and Jonathan M. Karpoff
2026
The paper clarifies why the Modigliani-Miller and Coase theorems offer fundamentally different insights for corporate finance, despite their superficial similarities. Coase identifies opportunity-cost pressure toward efficient resource allocation and, in a corporate setting, toward higher firm value. The MM theorem instead establishes that financial policy is indeterminate under its assumptions because alternative financing choices are equally valuable; investment policy is therefore the foundational source of value. Neither theorem is a special case of the other, and distinguishing their mechanisms sharpens the analysis of financing policy, governance, property rights and value creation. >more