Agenda

This keynote will explore how mega forces are driving leverage across public and private balance sheets. The AI buildout is front-loaded and capital-intensive, leading the corporate sector to leverage up while governments already carry historically high debt burdens. This environment creates greater credit issuance and rising term premium. We see dispersion ahead in private credit and stay selective across public and private fixed income markets.

• Against the backdrop of heightened spreads, market competition and low volatility - how is the European market adjusting to elevated attention as a diversification opportunity?
• Consider which of these drivers most concerns investors - pricing of risk, arbitrage pressure or regulatory constraints?
• Democratization of credit (and the growth of ETFs)
• What can Europe’s regulators do to create greater opportunities for investors?

• How can the market navigate any continued barriers to issuance and a more challenging regulatory environment?
• As default rates rise to historical norms, how will managers adjust their portfolio structures?
• Which European jurisdictions are proving providing the greatest opportunities?
• What can managers expect from market shifts through 2026?

• Examining infrastructure, project finance, and CRE-adjacent collateral and structural characteristics. What other emerging collateral types are out there?
• How are rating agencies and investors assessing these assets? 
• Will 2026 see growth in these asset types, or will ‘innovation’ remain incremental, rather than transformational?

• How are enhanced data and analytics, and evolving ratings methodologies, shaping credit assessments, due diligence, and portfolio monitoring?
• In what ways can the adoption of advanced digital tools and automation genuinely improve transparency and decision-making within rating methodologies and investor due diligence?
• Are current ratings methodologies, across the capital structure, still fit for purpose?

• How do investors assess European manager's product selection?
• What is the potential for equity and mezzanine products among investors?
• What are US investors looking for with European CLO products?

• Examining how changes to risk retention, capital treatment, and Solvency II are influencing CLO structuring, investor demand, and treatment of senior tranches across balance sheets.

• Can debtors avoid the emergence of credit-on-creditor violence?
• Are liquidity coverage requirements a hindrance or benefit to the EU market?
• What can Europe learn from the US experience with LMES?
• Which legal considerations are most prevalent for CLO investors and managers?

• How do loan size, covenant structures, sponsor behaviour, and liquidity in MM compare to BSL? And does this change structuring, portfolio construction, and risk management?
• How are rating agencies underwriting MM CLOs vs BSL, and which structural features are more susceptible to stresses?
• What are the real constraints on scaling MM CLOs in Europe? Warehousing, asset granularity, investor appetite, balance-sheet usage?
• In a tighter arbitrage environment, how resilient are MM equity returns, and where does relative value genuinely exist across the capital stack?

• How has secondary liquidity in European CLO tranches evolved, and where do bid/offer dynamics break down under market stress?
• What role are CLO ETFs playing in shaping secondary demand, price discovery, and volatility? How does this differ, and what lessons can be learned, from the U.S.?
• What are the opportunities arising from growing retail-isation of CLO ETFs? How can these structures help accelerate market growth, and what should managers be considering when looking to develop an ETF?
• How should managers and investors think about mark-to-market risk, forced selling, and liquidity assumptions across tranches?

• What are investors seeking from managers in a more volatile global market?
• Will the price advantage of shifting resources to European shores remain?
• Which market impediments can be overcome in the short-term? And which might remain over the longer term?