Pension funds are key investors in the market, with around $27.6tn in assets as of 2018. In this article, we will present a brief overview of pension schemes and funds around the world, with a focus on the challenges that pension funds will have to face in the near future. Read more…
Introduction The private equity industry has always had a special place in the financial world. Its competitive and dynamic nature has captivated the most talented businessmen, but what really allowed it to grow steadily over the past 40 years was the outstanding performance it granted to the investors willing to Read more…
Even those of us who don’t check commodity prices were probably keen to see the spike in oil prices at markets open on Monday, September 16th. While the drone attacks on the facilities of Saudi Aramco and their consequences are still present in the news, in this article we want Read more…
US On Monday, the US registered stronger than expected manufacturing and composite PMIs while a weak service PMI. In the same day, the FED injected about 50bn $ in the financial system through REPOs following last week spike in short-term borrowing costs. The FED continued its intervention in the REPO Read more…
Blackstone Group Inc. (NYSE:BX) – market cap as of 16/09/2019: $63.96bn Dream Global Real Estate Investment Trust (TSE:DRG.UN) – market cap as of 16/09/2019: $3.22bn Intro On September 15, Dream Global Real Estate Investment Trust announced acquisition agreements with affiliates of real estate funds manager, Blackstone, in an all-cash $4.7bn Read more…
US Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are once again back in the spotlight, with American treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin proposing to reform and recapitalized these government enterprises. The Fed has cut rates by 25 bps to a range of 1.75% – 2%, in line with market expectations while resisting the Read more…
In a world of excessive liquidity, where open market operations by central banks are ineffective, unconventional and unheard-of monetary policies need sometimes to be applied. In this article we will briefly discuss of the overnight interbank lending market in Europe (and changes in how its respective index is calculated) and Read more…
As summer comes to an end, BSIC presents its top picks of the season’s most interesting deals. We saw several key themes throughout the summer, notably, a wave of megadeals, with 13 deals over €5bn announced this summer compared with only 2 in the same season last year. Worldwide deal Read more…
The London Stock Exchange Group (LON: LSE) – market cap as of 01/08/2019: £30.05bn Introduction On August 1st 2019, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) announced it had come to terms with Refinitiv shareholders to acquire the business in an all-share transaction for a total enterprise value of around $27bn. Read more…
How expensive can it be to borrow USD cash for one night collateralizing fully with the US Treasuries? Given current rates, perhaps somewhat above 2% would be reasonable. What about 10%? This is how much some of the participants in the USD Repo market had to pay to provide themselves Read more…
Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) – market cap as of 15/09/2019: $10.61bn CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS) – market cap as of 15/09/2019: $16.48bn Introduction On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom agreed to recombine in an all-stock merger, which will create a multiplatform premium content company set to become one of the leading Read more…
US On Wednesday, following the FED committee’s meeting, Jerome Powell announced that the US central bank is leaving interest rates unchanged by saying that “we don’t see a strong case for moving (interest rates) in either direction”. Although the United States showed an impressive GDP growth in the first quarter Read more…
Following the first article of the series in which we analyzed the greeks of a Binary option, in this second part of the series we would like to introduce Asian options and their greeks. Asian options are part of a broader macro-class of exotic derivatives named Path Dependent Derivatives; in Read more…
Introduction 2018 will be remembered by many investors as a difficult year. In sharp contrast to 2017, when S&P500 was performing spectacularly (+19.4% YoY), 2018 brought a bitter disappointment to many. Not only in terms of absolute performance (-7% YoY), driven heavily by the impressive sell-off in the last quarter Read more…
Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND) – expected market cap as of 03/05/2019: $1.5b Introduction On May 2nd, Beyond Meat, producer of plant-based meat substitutes, went public on the NASDAQ. The firm priced its initial public stock offering at 25$ per share, after strong demand encouraged the company to raise the price Read more…