Dear members
May has been a busy month for the LMA, but it has also been a month with several bank holidays to enjoy as we begin the transition from spring into summer. With the end of the football season upon us, I am personally looking forward to the Euro 2024 championship, summer festivals and taking a break to relax and recharge. Although with football I am already steeling myself managing the euphoric excitement of Scotland progressing and balanced with previous history – maybe this year!
Many of you will have interacted with Sophie Turner and Max Griffiths, our two dedicated interns who have made significant contributions during their year with us. Sadly, it is now time for them to return to university, so please join me in wishing them well for the future. We look forward to welcoming our new interns soon.
We have commenced working on our response to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)’s UCITS Eligible Assets Directive. This consultation seeks feedback on the directive’s effectiveness and areas needing improvement, and for us we will be covering loans and CLOs. We would like to incorporate your views on this, so please reach out to Nick Voisey at [email protected] to share your views. The consultation period runs until 7 August.
There has been a noticeable increase in press coverage around fund financing, including subscription lines, NAV lending, and other related areas. The LMA is committed to promoting consistent practices and safeguarding the integrity of this asset class and we will be organising education and webinars around this topic. Again, if you wish to share your views and input, please reach out to me.
Our work on Primary Delayed Settlement Compensation continues to progress and we will provide an update on this over the summer. There is much going on in Sustainable Finance and again we will update on this in the next letter.
We continue to help our members navigate IBOR transition. With synthetic USD LIBOR coming to an end in September, the LMA is working with other trade associations and regulators to ensure market preparedness. We are also tackling the slow adoption of EURIBOR fallbacks in the loan market, including upcoming member roundtables. We were pleased by the reaction to the timely release of our South African rate switch exposure draft given announcements of proposed timelines for JIBAR cessation. Market participants need to engage in the implications for their business operations and strategy and minimise their exposure to manage the operational risks. The LMA rate switch enables such risk to be managed through the hardwired switch mechanism. We encourage members to join us on 26 June for a FTSE Russell conversation with the LMA and ESMA on this topic.
Last month we launched FutureLend, our inaugural conference for future leaders in the sector. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from members and attendees, who appreciated both the recognition of being selected and the opportunity to participate. I think the participants were in awe of England rugby star Jason Robinson, and how his insights resonated with their experiences in finance markets – albeit many were still in nappies when England won the World Cup. We are planning to establish a Junior Board to help shape the agenda of this landmark event in future, with the caveat we need to ensure it is established with a strong basis to succeed. This will be supported by our LinkedIn alumni community which has just gone live.
In May we held a roundtable for 20 institutional investors (all non-members) in Stockholm to discuss trends in public and private lending, real asset finance, and sustainable finance. We plan to build on the success of this event by replicating it in Q4 in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Helsinki. The roundtable accompanied our seminar in the city, which attracted just under 200 delegates. We covered a broad agenda including private credit, 2024 and 2025 credit outlook and the usual Heads of Syndication panel debate.
The LMA held its first certification course in the Middle East demonstrating how important we see the region for the LMA and we were delighted that we could deliver this programme for our members.
Looking ahead, we have several key events planned. In July, we will hold our South African Conference in Johannesburg, looking at how the Sub-Saharan African loan market is adapting in the current macroeconomic and geopolitical climate. We are hosting a Borrower Breakfast around this to ensure we can have the Borrower voice considered in our work and will be seeing institutional investors who allocate to the African markets – another critical part of supporting the market.
It seems only yesterday that I attended my first LMA annual conference (September 2023). Time marches on and we will shortly be sending out invitations for this year. Watch this space for further details. The last few months of the year are incredible busy for us with a programme covering a broad geographic reach and agenda – Europe, Sustainable Finance, and FutureLend Europe.
Since the end of March, we have welcomed 10 new members. We are delighted to welcome them to the LMA and look forward to working with them. The increased engagement with the broader loan ecosystem is helping this growth, particularly in the technology sector and with institutional investors. But we acknowledge we need to do more. We are establishing a series of new committees based on member interests, including Operations, Sustainability, Regulation, Documentation, Institutional Investors and Events, Training, and Diversity. These six committees will be steered by members to ensure that we are delivering on our community’s needs, with a Board member overseeing.
As usual we have a lot going on and I look forward to seeing many of you over the next month, hopefully when we finally see some UK summer weather.
Finally, with our move to a new CRM tool, we will also be updating our points of contact with members to promote an ongoing dialogue and enhance the delivery of timely event notifications, targeted thought leadership, and involvement in key market initiatives. Some of you will be the recipients of this outreach over June – thank you for your support in advance.
