Dear Members,
Here we are at the end of Q1. There is lot I wish to share below, and it is difficult to rank a priority list – all are material! I am blessed to have a great team and their contribution as you will see is amazing – not just in terms of what you see but what is going on behind the scenes.
From my side, March seems to have been more productive with less travel, although also governance heavy. Not a bad thing to ensure the right guardrails and decision making, but also in that I have been able to see many of you bilaterally with more time in the office.
Charlotte Conlan and Martin Luehrs – Chair role
Charlotte Conlan has announced she is standing down from her role at the LMA. It has been a pleasure to work with Charlotte over the last 18 months and I am truly appreciative of her support and counsel. More in the formal note. I am pleased to announce Martin Luehrs at Morgan Stanley as the new Chair of the LMA and I look forward now to working with him more closely.
We have a strong Finco and Board but equally I am also keen to see other firms look to be represented and ensure we cover the whole of the loan markets. September will be the next election, and more details will come out over the next few months.
On that governance theme, we launched the Junior Board in March, with initial applications coming from attendees at the LMA’s Futurelend. We will be opening this up to other applicants in April, so if you are interested, please reach out to myself to hear more. This will ensure the voice of the junior cohort is heard and represented in the work of the LMA and we hope we can get increased input to our events, training, and networking.
So far in 2025, we have already seen 34 new firms join the LMA, increasing again our representation. We also have a long prospect list from many areas of the market strategically important for the LMA – showing how we are the voice of all the loan markets across EMEA. I am looking forward to our new cohort joining the LMA family and contributing to our work in the year ahead. For those members still to pay, unfortunately your access to our documents and events will end in April. We are still following up with some of you around the collection process.
I trust you have noticed the improvements and additions we have made to our website and your initial access points. This started on the communications side, we then added the Institutional Investor page, and this month we also added the Fund Finance microsite. This is of course a journey, and we will be working over 2025 to totally redesign the look and feel of the website, looking to ensure you all have a fantastic user journey and experience.
The Fund Finance microsite has already had great feedback as we centralise our publications, webinars, and showcase our working groups. We will be building on this to add key stakeholder publications. The latest insights covering NAV Financing can be found here.
And of course, our new Horizons edition was launched this week (did we mention it was award-winning?) – I liked the piece by Steve Rocco, challenging the status quo. Our Challenging the Timelines publication will also be out soon.
April will see another significant win with the launch of the LMA Documentation Hub, for the first time integrating a free version of LMA.Automate. For our members, this means an improved search function, the ability to filter documents, and a smoother, more intuitive user experience. What you won’t see is the extensive work which took place behind the scenes. This included the review, renaming and re-categorisation of over 530 individual documents, reducing these down to 283. Further improvements and additional features will be introduced through the year. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
The LMA was delighted to joint host an event in Cape Town in late March, in partnership with RMB (thanks to Miranda Abraham) and ACTSA, featuring borrowers, institutional investors, banks and key stakeholders. The subject was JIBAR transition to Zaronia and the roadmap over the next 18 months. The LMA has produced documentation to support new transactions, working closely with the SARB. We remain committed to supporting this transition, having been actively involved in the Libor and Euribor transition, and are here to help our members and their clients. Watch this space over the next period as the most important thing for the loan markets is transparency, communication, and where necessary, education.
In the Sustainability space we published our Updated Green, Social and Sustainability-Linked Loan Principles and supporting Guidance on 26 March. These revisions aim to (1) clarify what is required to comply with the Principles; (2) strengthen the robustness of frameworks; and (3) highlight how borrowers can better leverage the significant work they’ve already done to maximise the impact of sustainability-labelled instruments.
Earlier in March, we launched our first-ever Sustainable Finance Insights Report on Greenwashing Risk in the Loan Market. Again, another critical delivery to support the loan markets.
March (and Q1) has typically been a quiet period for the LMA although the events team will see this change markedly in 2026 with several unique first-time events. I can’t wait to share these with you as we develop over the next month but thematically these will cover Fund Finance, CLO APAC, a Technology Fair, and Africa Loan Markets – all of these will form part of a strategic delivery supporting many of our member segments. Watch this space!
Early March saw the LMA/LSTA conference structured around leveraged finance this year. As an attendee I thought it was a fantastic day with incredible senior speakers and deep content. We were flattered to have Lee Foulger from the Bank of England speak, but are totally appreciative to all our speakers, and our peers from the LSTA who also came over.
A secondary training event followed this conference, and we had nearly 200 people attend to develop their knowledge in the secondary markets and how to drive efficiency in this area. As an adjunct to this, thanks to Finastra for asking me to deliver a keynote on the State of Loan Markets – the day developed the keynote and covered loan market technology and emerging solutions.
Finally, Amelia and I attended the annual Bonds and Loans conference in Cape Town, and an African CRI event sponsored by RMB. It was fantastic to meet many of our African members in person and to also showcase our plans and activities to those less informed and prospective members. It still surprised me around the knowledge gaps of our work and that is for me and the LMA to do more. We will be publishing an event blog, so I won’t give too much away in spoilers, but Africa certainly is seen as an increasingly important financing bridge, evidenced by many Asian and Middle East firms in attendance. Moreover, there were many more of the prominent African banks looking to expand their remit.
April is also busy – we have reimagined some of the European seminars and replaced them with smaller targeted roundtables and networking drinks. First up is Amsterdam. We then host our Nigeria conference supported by an ESG seminar. We will attend the LSTA Operations conference looking to ensure we have a joined up and connected approach to delivering increased efficiency and reduced friction to the loan settlement process.
You will have also seen the release of save the dates for upcoming flagship events – we hope to see you there and please reach out if you wish to speak or contribute.
Save the date:
Futurelend – 13th May, London
Stockholm/Oslo/Helsinki roundtables 20th May
LMA European Loan Markets Conference – 17th June Madrid
In the face of significant geopolitical, technological and macroeconomic changes, the regulatory environment is also evolving rapidly. It is therefore more important than ever that the LMA engages in an active dialogue with policymakers, legislators and regulators to represent member interests and to ensure that unintended consequences are avoided. We have recognised this through a renewed strategic focus on our regulatory work.
I am therefore delighted that we now have our regulatory feedback group up and running. This provides a forum for LMA members to get involved in our regulatory work, including consultation responses and broader regulatory initiatives.
In March, we responded to consultations and engaged with members across a range of topics, including the EU’s Savings and Investments Union, securitisations, CRDVI, sustainable finance and alternative investment funds. I would like to thank our members who have been involved in this work and would like to encourage you to get in contact if you are interested in getting involved. Read all our submissions.
The Institutional Investor Committee met in March and there are several key outcomes to reach over the next few months. I will be looking to get input and support from several of our members on both primary and secondary mechanics and delayed compensation. The Operations Committee has taken this very far, but the next steps require some other stakeholders.
The rebooted Middle East Committee met also in March and there is increasing development of a 2025 and beyond plan. Our documentation working group is underway as we look to finalise Shariah-compliant LMA loan documentation. This will not be quick but there are some things we believe we can deliver in 2025 supporting market liquidity. We will need member support in the other working groups and details of these will be sent to our GCC distribution list
No time to pause as you will see from the above. My highlights as always come from seeing many of you bilaterally hearing your support and praise where we do things well, but equally important what you want more of.
Best regards,
Scott McMunn
Chief Executive Officer
Loan Market Association
