I trust you are all enjoying the start of summer and hopefully have some downtime ahead over August. With the holiday period getting into full flow, I will take a pause on the monthly update and return at the end of September – which of course will be a fully loaded month but more of that later.
The World Cup reached its conclusion although on a personal level I found it quite anti-climactic, particularly demonstrated by the half time entertainment at the final and the blatant commercialism. Politics and finance won over football. As an avid sports fan, this saddens me and with the latest developing stories about private market involvement raises questions about the future of sport in my mind. However this is a loan market piece so I digress!
In the UK, July saw another new Prime Minister. This is the third one we have had since I joined the LMA. I don’t think we need an LMA of the North yet!
We have our family holiday and downtime almost imminently. Am very much looking forward to some time off and we will be vacationing around Lake Annecy. If you have any recommendations, please reach out to me, although my youngest son has organised an activity loaded agenda – this is more my scene.
Loan Markets Comment
Before talking to loan markets over the period, I wanted to bring out one statistic from our member reporting. Our secondary settlement metrics reported c53k par trades occurring in 1H 2026. This is unprecedented, and to put it in context, FY2023 saw 56k of par trades.
Volumes are increasing, which shows the maturity and liquidity of our secondary leveraged finance markets. The flip side is the growing pressure on operational efficiency, secondary settlement times, and system interoperability. There are increasing pinch points and it is fair to say change is needed.
July was another month showing resilience and consistency in our loan markets. Primary issuance continues to see strong syndication but there remains growing caution in private credit. This may be more global rather than EMEA, but the headlines remain.
The ECB’s latest bank lending survey does show some element of tightened lending standards as reported by banks – geopolitics, pricing and rates, and of course perceived credit risk. Let us see how this plays out.
There has, of course, been more regulatory and supervisory input to our work, but we at the LMA are confident we are having the right conversations to support you.
To summarise, and aligned with our research findings, July highlighted a market that is maturing rather than contracting. There is strong and sizable financing supply, and it remains to be seen how this flows through the lending funnels.
Learning & Development
You will have heard through the year about the criticality of L&D and what it means to our member value proposition and offering. I was delighted to see that our new Head of Education and Training, Marc Granville, started in July.
He will be reaching out to many of you over the coming quarter as we design and build a sustainable and impactful learning programme, both in person and online. This is a core part of the LMA foundation and rest assured I am committed to providing the offering here to meet the needs of our market. Please reach out to Marc and share your thoughts and ideas on the LMA learning programme.
Our 30-year anniversary
There would be no surprises (unless you were hibernating) to hear the focus in July was our 30th anniversary celebration and the launch of our loan market outlook. Let’s take each in turn.
Firstly, the event at the V&A.
It was an incredible experience to have exclusive access to such a prestigious museum surrounded by LMA branding and accompanied by many of our members. Thank you for braving the latest London heatwave and coming along. A personal highlight was the launch video of our new brand accompanied by the 30-year LMA timeline. It is incredible to look back and see the successes many of you have contributed to over this period. A well-deserved raising of the glass to you all. The event was not only a celebration, but a thank you.
The launch of 2040: the Future for EMEA Loan Markets report was something different. This has been a work in progress for over six months ensuring we get the right responses and interviews to drive a meaningful and authoritative outlook. I am delighted we succeeded and this was reflected in the superb press coverage.
As for the report launch event itself, being able to showcase Lord Holmes, three doyens of the LMA, and a panel featuring three Chief Executives from our member firms was just the icing on the cake.
As the report findings highlight, the next period of growth will see significant dependency on the loan markets to support the financing of the real economy, to manage existential risks around climate change, defence and security resilience, and of course to enable the huge demand for capital around digital infrastructure and technology.
It is clear the role of the LMA is crucial not only now but in future to provide that authoritative voice and guidance in markets which are complex, frequently changing, and increasingly subject to geopolitical risk.
Elsewhere in July
I would also like to highlight another key event we hosted over the period, specifically a private dinner with the Bank of England. A very big thank you to Tess Kelly and the team at Addleshaw Goddard for their part and with this to bring Nathanaël Benjamin, Executive Director of Financial Stability Strategy and Risk at the Bank of England, and 12 seniors representatives from our member firms to discuss around private credit, non-bank and bank interconnectivity, and the critical importance of this community to finance the UK real economy.
This is our third similar event already in 2026 and we will look to host another in Paris in Q4.
Board and Governance
Our AGM is fast approaching, and for those of you who are nominated representatives, you will be shortly receiving formal documentation covering our Articles and Bylaws, together with details on the voting process and candidates standing for the election.
This year, 10 candidates are standing for 7 positions. I would encourage you all to consider carefully what each candidate would bring to the Board, ensure they add diversity around role, responsibility, and also the firm they are representing, and to vote accordingly.
For the Board to work effectively and to provide the right challenge, scrutiny and support to the LMA Executive, it should continually evolve to reflect the changing loan markets, sources of capital, and range of stakeholders involved.
This means looking beyond areas such as syndication and leverage, etc., and ensuring the Board reflects the breadth of operating roles and activities across our member firms. You will no doubt be hearing from our candidates in advance of the AGM.
The Junior Board has recently opened applications for Junior Board member roles. If you have any questions regarding the application criteria, please contact JuniorBoard-Applications@lma.eu.com. The application window closes on 19 August. This is also a fundamental part of the association and affords this cohort the opportunity to influence and direct the future direction. We would welcome your interest and encourage you to look internally and challenge your teams.
Membership
We continue to see new joiners coming into the LMA from a broad range of categories, reflecting our breadth of work and outputs. It is so rewarding to see these efforts result in not only new membership but also increased engagement with our current members.
The Membership Success area is a fundamental part of our strategy – ensuring we have ongoing and frequent connectivity with you and your firms, understanding your needs and goals, determining what you want more of and less of, and ultimately bringing your involvement into our workstreams and outputs.
Publications
I would like to draw your attention to several of the key publications that came out over the period.
There has been significant time and effort working on the Pure Play paper and also, we should acknowledge the global connectivity and hard work to put this together. A big thank you to the APLMA and LSTA for your part in this. This is a Practice Note which provides a practical framework for identifying and evaluating such “pure play” companies, helping to promote greater consistency, transparency and integrity across the market. We believe it will help around the efficiency and transparency of this section of the loan market.
As we acknowledge the incredible financing requirements to build and support compute and infrastructure our latest insights piece provides an introductory look at the varying financing types and areas of consideration around digital infrastructure.
Interoperability is a material part of the efficiency story the LMA is looking to support and even resolve. This is very much a call to action for the industry to build the foundations required for not only more efficient information exchange but to assist the storyline highlighted earlier of increasing trading volumes.
And finally, we launched the LMA Technology Vendor Directory, a new resource designed to help members navigate the growing technology landscape and identify relevant solutions. This accompanied by our new Vendor Spotlight Newsletter, which will showcase featured vendors, emerging technologies and innovation from across the loan markets ecosystem. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter.
Publications
To repeat, I hope you all manage to get some holiday down time over August. There will be much to do in our markets over the latter part of 2026 and specifically within the LMA, so a break is much-needed.
I look forward to seeing many of you at not only the AGM in September but of course our Annual Conference in London.
Have a good one!
