Curated short analyses

• 2026-04-16Briefing

  April 2026 briefing dossier released

  The April 2026 briefing dossier is available on the Papers page. 16 pages covering CMBS, synthetic securitisation / SRT, fund finance (including NAV facilities and CFOs) and back leverage — mechanics, 2025/26 market data, regulatory framework and the principal legal issues for practitioners.

• 2026-03-05SRT

  Global synthetic-securitisation issuance aimed at SRT hits record USD 41 bn in 2025 — and the CRE tranche more than doubles

  Debtwire / ION reports a fifth consecutive record year for transactions aimed at Significant Risk Transfer. CRE and infrastructure issuance more than doubled year-on-year, with Europe accounting for 70%+ of global volume. Q4 2025 alone exceeded full-year pre-2022 volumes. Regulatory focus is shifting from Article 245 CRR mechanics to the downstream circularity with back leverage and the GRT-test implications of concentrated CRE reference pools.

• 2026-02-20Fund finance

  NAV finance inverts — 73% of 2025 term-sheet counterparties are non-banks

  17Capital's 2025 review confirms a structural inversion: on the NAV side of fund finance, non-bank lenders now write the majority of term sheets. A striking contrast with the subscription-line market, where the top five banks continue to dominate. Implications for documentation — counterparty credit analysis, funding-source covenants and the structuring of hybrid facilities — are significant.

• 2026-02-05CMBS

  European CMBS issuance 2025 — €8.7 bn across 17 transactions

  2025 was the strongest year for European CMBS since the pre-GFC era. Weighted-average note margins tightened to four-year tights. Sponsor names (Blackstone, Starwood, EQT, Brookfield) and book-runners (Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America) are concentrated; the investor base (ABS / RMBS accounts with long-unfilled CRE allocations) has re-built. 2026 pipeline reinforces the trajectory.

• 2026-01-15Basel

  PRA PS1/26 — Basel 3.1 final rules delayed to January 2027

  The second PRA delay in twelve months lands the UK main capital regime at 1 January 2027, with transitional provisions running to end-2029. The EU, by contrast, is already inside CRR3 (since 1 January 2025), though the FRTB package has been pushed to 2027 and the output-floor transition extended to 2032. The U.S. has no final rule. The divergence itself is the driver for the CRE structured-credit toolkit — particularly synthetic securitisation (the dominant SRT vehicle) and back leverage, where the differential capital cost matters most.

• 2025-12-10SRT

  EBA Guidelines on SRT assessment — in force for 2025 pipeline

  The EBA's final Guidelines on Significant Risk Transfer entered into force in 2025 and set the framework under which supervisors apply the three GRT gates (risk actually transferred; pricing / tranche sizing commensurate; structural robustness). The Guidelines codify prior ECB SSM practice and sharpen expectations on clean-up calls, replenishment and early-termination mechanics. CRE synthetic securitisations that relied on older precedent should be reviewed against the Guidelines before 2026 take-out.

• 2025-11-25Back leverage

  Knight Frank “Behind the Stack 2.0” — European back leverage hits €30 bn

  The 2026 edition of the Knight Frank Capital Advisory back-leverage survey confirms European outstanding at approximately €30 bn. 55% of surveyed lenders are now active; programmatic (rather than deal-by-deal) utilisation is up c. 90% year-on-year. Minimum day-one ticket sizes have shifted materially upwards. Development lending, historically the hardest sub-asset-class to back-lever, now reaches 80% of borrower needs — a striking change in appetite.

Last reviewed: 20 April 2026. For primary sources, see Resources; for short definitions of the technical terms, see the Glossary.