Capital Market

✒ With a valuation between $200bn and $300bn and a sale of 10-15% of its shares, Ant is larger than most global banks and this could be a record breaking IPO surpassing the $29.4bn raised by Saudi Aramco last year.

✒ Alphabet setting record low coupons.

✒ Takeaways: Equity returns roughly follow a bell curve, skewed towards positive performance; The chart doesn’t take into account volatility; YTD market performance falls within historical range; Recessions tend to be followed by strong recoveries – the market is “psychological” as well as “cycle-logical”.

✒ There are deals that were already afoot pre-crisis and have continued, maybe on different terms, because they still make sense. Other purchases are either ‘primarily opportunistic’ or are based on ‘planning for the post-crisis environment,’ often tech deals.

✒ Circular funding.

✒ The judge said the cost of equity is significantly less than a loan, which turned the laws of corporate finance upside down.

✒ A “gift” from the Fed?

✒ Central bank can keep credit flowing. But it cannot conjure up economic demand or turn bad loans into good credits.

✒ Private equity deploying dry powder to buy into company with newly reduced valuation.

✒ When the prices of an ETF and the NAV of the assets it holds diverge, which one is correct?

✒ While shoppers are stripping bare supermarket shelves, companies are pulling down credit lines.

✒ How dividend policy affects the credit rating of a company.

✒ Toying with the concept of “Fleits” – car fleet investment trusts.

✒ An unconventional ICO/IPO hybrid to commercialise the age-old board game.

✒ Private firms struggle to get financing. 2. Poor due diligence.

✒ Academic researchers estimate that about 30% of high- and medium-credit quality funds were given a less risky profile in recent years than they should have received.

✒ Coming to terms with reality.

✒ Time to refinance.

✒ The entire German yield curve is now negative.

✒ Look out for your deposits.