NEWSLETTER of November 6, 2026

The following content has been added at finexpert:

European Commission Platform on Sustainable Finance
MONITORING OF CAPITAL FLOWS TO SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENTS
Large EU companies allocated EUR 512 billion to green and transition investment in 2025, equivalent to 21% of their total capital expenditure. Germany accounted for 31% of the EUR 313 billion in reported Taxonomy-aligned investment, the largest national share. Green lending by EU banks reached EUR 1.21 trillion in 2024, an increase of 36%, while net inflows into Article 8 funds totalled EUR 327 billion in 2025. The European Green Bond Standard attracted EUR 58.8 billion across 61 bonds during its first 18 months, indicating that sustainable investment is becoming increasingly integrated across corporate finance, bank lending, bond markets and investment funds. >more

KfW Research | ifo Institute
KFW-IFO KREDITHÜRDE Q3 2026
German companies encountered somewhat less restrictive bank lending behaviour in the third quarter, although financing conditions remain difficult by historical standards. The share of SMEs describing banks' conduct in loan negotiations as restrictive fell by 4.6 percentage points to 35.9%; among large companies it declined by 5.7 points to 27.2%. Credit demand nevertheless diverged sharply: 30.6% of large companies entered loan negotiations, while the SME share fell to 18.8%, its lowest level since 2021. High interest rates, uncertainty and SMEs' preference to avoid debt continue to constrain corporate borrowing. >more

KfW Research | German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK)
GERMAN PRIVATE EQUITY BAROMETER Q3 2026
Sentiment in Germany's private-equity market improved during the third quarter. The business-climate indicator rose by 17.4 points to -14.6, driven primarily by a 28.6-point increase in six-month expectations to -7.9; the assessment of current conditions improved more modestly to -21.3. Although fundraising and exit conditions remain weak, indicators for entry valuations, investment appetite and deal-flow volume moved into their historically favourable ranges. Acquisition-finance conditions also recovered from the previous quarter, suggesting that investors are increasingly willing to deploy capital despite a still-subdued overall market environment. >more

European Central Bank (ECB)
THE EURO AREA BANK LENDING SURVEY – THIRD QUARTER OF 2026
Euro-area banks reported a further net tightening of credit standards for corporate loans, with a net 9% tightening compared with 7% in the previous quarter. Higher perceived risks and reduced risk tolerance were the main drivers, while corporate loan demand declined by a net 6% as higher interest rates and weaker fixed investment weighed on borrowing. In Germany, standards for corporate lending tightened but housing-loan standards eased. Banks expect further tightening in the fourth quarter and a gradual increase in demand for financing AI infrastructure, particularly data centres. Access to retail deposits and market funding also deteriorated. >more

HOW ARE CEOS FIRED?
Jason (Pang-Li) Chen, Ran Duchin, and Eliezer M. Fich
2026
CEOs are more likely to be dismissed when their firm is the worst performer within directors’ networks of interlocked boards. The effects persist after including granular fixed effects, controlling for nonlinear, absolute, and industry-relative performance, and in analyses of exogenous director turnovers and falsification tests. Interlock-benchmarked dismissals are followed by performance declines, analyst downgrades, and lower announcement returns, suggesting that these dismissals are not easily explained as value-enhancing responses to poor performance. Our findings highlight a novel channel through which interlocking boards shape governance and shareholder value: implicit relative performance benchmarks. >more

SHOCK TRANSMISSION THROUGH BANK-NONBANK LINKAGES: EVIDENCE FROM PRIVATE CREDIT
Manasa Gopal, Camelia Minoiu, and Veronika Penciakova
2026
Private credit funds borrow over $350 billion in committed credit lines from banks while also serving as direct lenders to middle-market firms. This dual role creates a channel through which funding shocks originating in the banking sector can propagate to the real economy. We construct a novel dataset linking private credit funds across SEC Form ADV disclosures and two loan-level micro datasets covering both sides of the private credit balance sheet: Federal Reserve supervisory data on funds' borrowing from banks and Uniform Commercial Code filings on their lending to firms. Exploiting cross-bank heterogeneity in run exposure following the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, we find that more exposed banks expanded lending to private credit funds by increasing committed amounts and lowering spreads, while rotating away from term loans to nonfinancial firms. This compositional shift is concentrated at lower-capital banks and in loan facilities with lower capital risk-weights, suggesting regulatory incentives as the underlying mechanism. >more