NEWSLETTER of September 26, 2025

The following content has been added at finexpert:

Bitkom
STARTUP REPORT 2025
The Startup Report 2025 shows the true state of Germany's start-ups: caught between growth and existential pressure. Issues such as funding gaps, lack of diversity and increasing regulation are counterbalanced by opportunities offered by AI and new markets. The report highlights where politicians and businesses need to take action to ensure innovation and competitiveness. >more

UBS
CORPORATE CREDIT-MÄRKTE IM WANDEL
The corporate credit market is undergoing a fundamental transformation that is also changing the way investors manage their bond portfolios. This transformation is characterised by two key trends: the increasing convergence between public and private markets, and the rapid growth of alternative credit strategies. Through research conducted in partnership with NMG Consulting, we gathered insights from 90 institutional investors and gatekeepers for private investors managing over USD 8 trillion in assets to understand how asset owners are adapting their strategies to navigate this changing environment. Our findings reveal changes in portfolio strategy and implementation as asset owners adjust to an increasingly complex environment. >more

Allianz
SECTOR ATLAS 2025: TRADE WAR IS A SECTOR WAR AFTER ALL
US tariffs are reshaping supply chains, prompting retaliation and heightening uncertainty. Companies will continue to adapt as the trade war is here to stay. Ongoing trade tensions, coupled with the need for fiscal consolidation in many countries, will continue to weigh on the economy and affect sectors differently. Despite deals and moratoriums over the summer, competition for manufacturing capacity remains a high priority for governments across the US, Europe and Asia. Moreover, geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to increase volatility in commodity and energy markets. The result is a global economy in which tariffs, cost competitiveness, fiscal and monetary policy and trade policy are pulling some sectors upward while pushing others downward. >more

BCG | BDI
DEEP TECH FÜR DEN INDUSTRIESTANDORT DEUTSCHLAND
The German government's ‘High-Tech Agenda for Germany’ has already taken the first important steps – now it is time to build on this foundation: The study ‘Deep Tech for Germany as an Industrial Location’ by BCG on behalf of the BDI makes concrete proposals on how success can be achieved in AI, AI-based robotics, quantum technologies, mRNA drugs, and cell and gene therapies – and formulates clear expectations for the German government. Only politics, business and science working together can create the conditions for us to develop champions in future technologies, achieve value creation in strategic deep tech areas and remain a leading industrial nation. >more

ESG LENDING
Sehoon Kim, Nitish Kumar, Jongsub Lee, and Junho Oh
2025
Firms increasingly borrow via sustainability-linked loans (SLLs), contractually tying spreads to their ESG performance. SLLs vary widely in transparency of disclosure regarding sustainability-related contract details and tend to be issued to borrowers with superior ESG profiles. While high-transparency SLL borrowers maintain this performance, low-transparency SLL borrowers exhibit significantly deteriorating ESG performance after issuance. Both high- and low-transparency borrowers pay substantial fees to obtain SLLs. The results are consistent with high-transparency borrowers using SLLs to "certify" their preexisting ESG commitments, but low-transparency borrowers "greenwashing" with empty SLL labels. Evidence on drawdowns, renegotiations, and stock market reactions further supports these interpretations. >more

INFLATION AND TRADING
Philip Schnorpfeil, Michael Weber, and Andreas Hackethal
2025
We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors’ beliefs about the stock return-inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many investors appear unaware of inflation-hedging strategies despite being otherwise well-informed about inflation rates and asset returns. Consequently, whereas exogenous shifts in inflation expectations do not impact return expectations, information on past returns during periods of high inflation leads to negative updating about the perceived stock-return impact of inflation, which feeds into return expectations and subsequent actual trading behavior. >more