AFME published, in July 2020, a new research note on the “Impact of COVID-19 on European Capital Markets: Market Update”.
The purpose of this report is to provide an update on how European capital markets have performed during the COVID-19 outbreak. This report follows a first publication launched in mid-April which assessed the initial impact of COVID-19 on Europe’s capital markets.
Key findings:
- Issuance levels of investment grade (IG) bonds have reached record weekly, monthly and quarterly volumes.
- An ESG recovery.
- European market liquidity has deteriorated over the last few months.
- Follow on equity offerings have continued to support the recovery.
- After two months of a virtually inactive IPO market, the European primary equity market reopened in May with EUR 3.6bn in proceeds from 24 deals.
- European listed SMEs have also benefited from access to equity capital, predominantly from secondary offerings on Junior exchanges.
- Record volumes of bank lending.
