NEWSLETTER of March 20, 2026

The following content has been added at finexpert:

Morningstar
SPOTLIGHT ON THE WORLD'S LARGEST AND MOST LIQUID UNICORNS
Many of today’s most dynamic companies are scaling rapidly, raising significant capital, and creating substantial value long before entering public markets, if they list at all. As leading venture capital backed firms such as OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe remain private for longer, late-stage venture has emerged as one of the fastest growing and most influential segments of the modern equity landscape. Its scale and market impact increasingly rival those of public incumbents, yet it remains largely absent from traditional benchmarks. This growth has been fueled in part by the expansion of secondary markets, which are creating new access points for investors. Through the lens of the Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 Index, which tracks the world's largest and most liquid unicorns, we explore key trends, performance drivers, and the growing role of late-stage private companies in defining today’s modern equity markets. >more
 

Creditreform
DEFAULT STUDY 2026
The default risks for German companies are rising noticeably. As Creditreform Rating’s latest Default Study 2026 shows, the empirical default rate rose to 1.88% in 2025. For 2026, the rating agency expects a further increase to 2.08%. This would mean the two-percent mark would be exceeded for the first time since the global financial crisis. This trend reflects the continued weak economic momentum in Germany. Although the German economy managed to avoid another recession in 2025, real GDP growth remained very low at 0.2%. >more

KfW Research
INVESTITIONSMONITOR DEUTSCHLAND – FRÜHJAHR 2026
Investment activity in Germany has shown mixed results. Government investment surged at the end of 2025, while private residential investment reached a turning point after a prolonged decline. By contrast, business investment suffered a significant setback in the fourth quarter—despite previously positive signs. In total, companies invested around EUR 491 billion in Germany in 2025; EUR 271 billion went into private residential construction, and the government invested EUR 145 billion. Adjusted for price and calendar effects, corporate investment declined by 0.9% over the course of the year, and by 1.8% in the fourth quarter alone. Investment indicators from the corporate sector are currently mixed. Government investment, by contrast, rose by 7% for the year as a whole and by as much as 10% in the final quarter. Residential construction investment rose by 1.6% in the fourth quarter, with consistent signs of recovery from leading indicators. >more

PGIM
CONTINUATION VEHICLES REDEFINE PRIVATE MARKETS
Continuation vehicles (CVs) have transitioned from a niche liquidity solution to a cornerstone of private market strategy. Initially associated with legacy assets, CVs now enable GPs to extend ownership of high-performing companies while offering LPs flexible exit options. This evolution reflects broader market dynamics, disrupted exit environments, heightened liquidity needs, and the pursuit of long-term value creation. In 2025, global GP-led transaction volumes reached $115 billion, a 53% increase from the year-ago. In this article we explore how CVs are reshaping secondaries across equity and credit markets and what institutional investors should consider when evaluating these transactions. Beyond the mechanics, we examine the strategic implications for portfolio construction, liquidity planning, and risk management. There are many nuances to a secondaries transaction and being able to grasp them fully and structure a deal that works for both buyer and seller is of paramount importance.  >more

ATTITUDES TO DEBT: THE ROLE OF MORAL VALUES
Fiona Paine, Antoinette Schoar, and David Thesmar
2025
This paper tests how people’s moral values influence their views of debt contracts. We ask participants to make decisions about debt contracts in different hypothetical situations (vignettes). We separately measure their moral values using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009). We have three main sets of findings. First, differences in moral values strongly explain the cross-section of participants’ debt decisions. Participants with more conservative values show more support for credit score-based loan pricing, stricter forms of collateral, and tougher bankruptcy resolution. Second, when we randomly change the economic costs and benefits of debt within our vignettes, we find that participants change their answers in the direction predicted by economic theory. Third, participants’ beliefs of the functioning of the credit market strongly correlate with their moral values. Participants with conservative values are more likely to believe that strict enforcement and risk-based loan pricing provide incentives and are economically efficient. More liberal participants believe that insurance against unlucky shocks are important. Consistent with moral values being distinct from Bayesian beliefs, financial literacy does not attenuate moral values in shaping beliefs about what is economically efficient. >more

SELLING TO YOURSELF: CONTINUATION FUNDS IN PRIVATE EQUITY
Rustam Abuzov, Will Gornall, Sophie Shive, Ilya A. Strebulaev, and Michael S. Weisbach
2026
Continuation funds (CFs) are private equity structures in which a manager raises a new fund to purchase assets from their existing fund. This structure has surged in popularity, from five funds in 2018 to 130 in 2024. We use a hand-collected sample of 472 CFs to test a model in which heterogeneous preferences drive CFs. Consistent with the model's predictions, CFs emerge when LPs are more heterogeneous and managers have earned carried interest that they can roll. LPs typically choose to exit rather than invest, with this decision driven by both LP-level frictions and time varying LP liquidity demands. >more