NEWSLETTER of July 10, 2020

The following content has been added at finexpert:

McKinsey & Company
COVID-19: THE NEXT NORMAL FOR GERMAN RETAIL BANKS
The coronavirus is changing the demands that private customers place on their bank. Customers seek advice in uncertain economic times, but are also increasingly turning to digital and mobile access channels. How banks can now best deal with the new challenges and opportunities. >more

Deloitte
ANNUAL REVIEW OF FOOTBALL FINANCE 2020
The Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance is produced by the Sports Business Group at Deloitte and is the most comprehensive review of the business and finances of English professional football, set within the context of the regulatory environment and the wider European game. The Report covers the 2018/19 season which saw English and European football reach new record levels of revenue generation. This snapshot of the peak before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic also includes some warning signs for the challenges to come. >more

PwC
EMISSIONSMARKT DEUTSCHLAND: Q2 2020
After almost eight months without an initial public offering, two companies in Germany ventured onto the trading floor again in the second quarter of 2020: In May, the Nuremberg database provider Exasol managed to make it into the scale segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange despite the corona crisis; this was followed in June by the pharmaceutical manufacturer PharmaSGP, which launched a new issue in the Prime Standard. The two debuts together generated an issue volume of 187 million euros. The annual IPO volume is thus at its lowest level since the financial crisis. >more

Allen & Overy
M&A INSIGHTS DEUTSCHLAND - 1. HALBJAHR 2020
The second quarter of 2020 was the first quarter that ended completely and globally under pandemic conditions - with clearly visible traces also in the market for company acquisitions and takeovers. The quality and quantity of transactions reflect the crisis just as much as the reactions of governments. >more

POLICY UNCERTAINTY AND CORPORATE CREDIT SPREADS
Mahsa Kaviani, Lawrence Kryzanowski, Hosein Maleki, and Pavel G. Savor
2020
We find a significant positive relation between changes in policy uncertainty and changes in credit spreads. Macroeconomic conditions, including general uncertainty, do not explain this result, which also holds when we use instrumental variables to address endogeneity issues. Policy uncertainty consistently emerges as one of the most important determinants of variation in spreads. Its impact is greater for firms that are more exposed to government policies, such as those operating in regulation-intensive industries, paying high effective tax rates, and dependent on government spending. It is also stronger for firms that engage in political activities, and for those that are more dependent on external financing. We conclude that policy uncertainty has a significant effect on firms' borrowing costs, with exposure to government policies representing an important channel. >more

IS BITCOIN REALLY UN-TETHERED?
John M. Griffin, and Amin Shams
2019
This paper investigates whether Tether, a digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar, influenced Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom. Using algorithms to analyze blockchain data, we find that purchases with Tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in Bitcoin prices. The flow is attributable to one entity, clusters below round prices, induces asymmetric autocorrelations in Bitcoin, and suggests insufficient Tether reserves before month-ends. Rather than demand from cash investors, these patterns are most consistent with the supply-based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices. >more