NEWSLETTER of October 30, 2026

The following content has been added at finexpert:

KfW Research
KFW MITTELSTANDSPANEL 2026
Germany's SMEs remain financially resilient despite a third consecutive decline in real revenues. Average pre-tax margins recovered to 7.5% and the equity ratio remained stable at 30.7%, strengthening loss-absorption capacity and access to debt finance. Investment activity, however, stayed close to its historical low: only 40% of firms implemented projects, real new investment fell by 3.7% to EUR 218 billion and bank borrowing for investment declined to EUR 84 billion. Although only 10% of investment-loan negotiations failed, many firms avoided new debt because of high interest rates, uncertainty and a preference for financial independence. >more

German Investment Funds Association (BVI)
GERMAN ETF INVESTORS FAVOUR BROAD GLOBAL INDICES
Exchange-traded funds have become a central growth driver in Germany's retail-fund market. German investors held EUR 697 billion in ETFs at the end of June 2026, almost EUR 200 billion more than one year earlier, while estimated net inflows reached around EUR 70 billion. Passive strategies account for 97.6% of assets, whereas genuinely active ETFs hold only 2.4%. Despite a product universe tracking roughly 2,000 indices, assets remain concentrated in a small number of broad, market-capitalisation-weighted benchmarks and index providers, helping to explain German portfolios' high exposure to US equities. >more

Allianz Research
GLOBAL INSOLVENCIES OUTLOOK 2028: HIGHER RATES, HIGHER ENERGY BILLS, HIGHER INSOLVENCIES
2026 marks the fourth consecutive year of rising global business insolvencies, with a moderately slowing pace. Our Global Insolvency Index looks set to increase by +5% this year (broadly in line with our previous estimate), down from +6% in 2025 and +10% in 2024, leaving it 21% above its pre-pandemic average. North America and Asia-Pacific now drive 79% of the global increase. The US is the main engine, accelerating to +12% (from +7% last year), while Canada keeps declining (-3%). Asia-Pacific contributes 28% of the headline rise, driven by Taiwan (+36%), South Korea (+12%) and Japan (+6%), though China is near-stabilizing at +1%. Western Europe adds 15% to the global increase: +4% regionally, led by Germany (+8%) and France (+3%), with five countries - including France (about 71,000 cases), Switzerland (15,000) and Australia (11,850) - reaching their highest levels since 2000. Overall, 24 of 44 monitored countries see rising insolvencies, and 30 now exceed their pre-pandemic averages. >more

Pemberton Asset Management
EUROPEAN MID-MARKET MONITOR Q3 2026
European direct lending activity strengthened in the third quarter, when Pemberton completed 13 transactions, including ten new platform investments and three additional facilities, making it the busiest third quarter since 2022. Business Services accounted for 31% of introductions and 23% of the lender's portfolio, supported by recurring demand, low capital intensity and strong cash conversion. A portfolio sample of 68 European mid-market companies recorded positive revenue growth across nearly all sectors, with EBITDA generally rising faster than sales. The report also identifies the Nordics as an increasingly important private-credit market, driven by succession-related M&A, buy-and-build strategies and borrowers' growing use of non-bank financing. >more

COMMON OWNERSHIP AROUND THE WORLD
Miguel Antón, Florian Ederer, Mireia Giné, Guillermo Ramírez-Chiang, and Kenneth Khoo
2026
We study common ownership in 49 countries from 2005 to 2023, covering economies that account for 86% of global GDP. Common ownership is pervasive and rising around the world: average pairwise implied profit weights (κ) more than doubled in the median country over our sample period and more than tripled in the United States. Common ownership exhibits a steep size gradient—highest among the largest firms and rising fastest at the top of the firm size distribution—a pattern we observe consistently across all countries and regions. We show that the rise of common ownership stems not just from more institutional investment but from its increasing concentration among a few megaproviders of capital such as the Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street). Even outside the United States, where non-Big Three investors remain important, the Big Three account for the largest share of the increase in common ownership in most countries. We also investigate how common ownership is related to legal, institutional, and market characteristics such as investor protection laws, competition laws, mandatory ESG disclosure, and labor market frictions across firms and countries. Our results are generally robust to replacing the one-share-one-vote assumption with control rights measured from dual-class share structures and ownership chains. >more

COMMUNICATING PERFORMANCE: TEXTUAL AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES IN PRIVATE EQUITY
Josh Lerner, Fiona Paine, and Antoinette Schoar
2026
Private equity fund managers possess meaningful information about portfolio-company quality within the first three years after investment, but the way this information reaches investors changes over time. Early in the holding period, the content and tone of managers' textual discussions are more informative about ultimate performance than interim valuations. Later, interim valuations become more important, especially after a portfolio company completes a financing event. The findings indicate that narrative disclosures can signal both portfolio-company prospects and general-partner quality in a market characterised by substantial opacity and information asymmetry. >more