Brief : KKR & Co. has committed to $8 billion in commercial-property loans so far in 2021, more than double its previous full-year record, as the pandemic reopening stokes demand for financing. “The market is just roaring back from a volume perspective,” Matt Salem, KKR’s head of real estate credit, said in an interview. “Pipelines are very big across the board.” Demand for new loans has revived as construction picks up, debt matures and low interest rates spur refinancing on favorable terms. Total debt on U.S. commercial and multifamily properties increased to $3.93 trillion as of March 31, up 1.1% in the first three months of this year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That growth continued as trillions of dollars in stimulus money flowed into the economy and vaccination campaigns fueled a revival of commerce and real estate investors’ appetites for risk.
Brief: ESG criteria is an outperformance factor and an essential prerequisite for companies' resistance to crises, according to the latest "SRI & Performance Study by LFDE," conducted by French asset manager La Financière de l'Echiquier (LFDE) for the third consecutive year. "The exceptional year of 2020 in particular, with its rapid market collapse and equally rapid recovery, has shown how resilient SRI investments are during crises," says Coline Pavot, Head of SRI Research at LFDE. During 2020, the portfolio with the best ESG scores (Top 40) posted a 15 per cent return, outperforming the portfolio with the worst ESG scores (Flop 40) by a factor of 68. At the same time, the MSCI Europe SRI Index (+1.4 per cent) outperformed the Flop 40 portfolio (0.2 per cent) and the MSCI Europe Index (-3.32 per cent).
Brief: Toronto’s financial district has been quiet ever since banks sent their employees home at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. That may be about to change. New cases of COVID-19 are down more than 95 per cent in Toronto compared with three months ago. About half of adults there are now fully vaccinated, and schools are preparing to reopen in two months. To Phil Verster, the chief executive officer of Metrolinx, the agency that runs commuter rail and bus service in Canada’s largest metropolitan area, that means many workers will go back to the office at least part of the time. “I am very optimistic that we are going to see a resurgence of travel — very much so starting in September and October,” Verster said in an interview, noting that he sends out Metrolinx staff to speak with business leaders about how their return-to-office plans are evolving. “What we’ve seen in our ridership is that considerations about whether children can go back to school or not are critical.”
Brief : Labor markets in developed nations have recovered only half of the loss of employment they suffered in the pandemic, with the young and low-skilled hurt most. That’s the conclusion of a 400-page study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found that about 22 million jobs disappeared by the end of 2020 in industrial nations. The Paris-based institution said a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels of employment won’t come until the end of next year. The findings indicate that the coronavirus crisis accelerated a number of trends that started over the past decade, including growing income inequality, a shift toward more technically demanding jobs and fewer secure employment opportunities for lower-skilled workers. “Failing to address inequality and exclusion now is likely to result not only in deeper social divisions but will have negative ramifications for productivity and economic recovery,” said Stefano Scarpetta, the OECD’s director for employment, labor and social affairs.
Brief: Digital health funding continues to smash new records each quarter, as venture-backed companies raised $14.7 billion in the first half of the year. That sum already surpasses the total venture funding raised in all of 2020, according to a new report from venture firm Rock Health. The Covid-19 pandemic has fueled the adoption of new digital health technologies, which already set an all-time high venture funding record of $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Rock Health’s CEO Bill Evans says that while even he was a bit surprised by such a huge increase compared to last year, the fundamentals checked out. “We saw pace increase and size per round increase,” says Evans. This translated to an average of 11 digital health deals totaling $548 million each week in the first six months of the year, compared to an average of 7 deals totaling $285 million in the second half of 2020
Brief: Hedge fund managers have grown even more optimistic about their business prospects over the next 12 months.On a scale ranging from -50 to +50, hedge funds rated their economic confidence at +19.5, up from an average of +18.4 the previous quarter, according to the second quarter Hedge Fund Confidence Index from AIMA, Simmons & Simmons, and Seward & Kissel. Confidence is also up significantly from +13.8 in the fourth quarter, according to the index.In a survey of more than 300 hedge funds around the world accounting for approximately $1 trillion in assets, respondents were asked to consider three factors for determining their outlook: “their firm’s ability to raise capital, their firm’s ability to generate revenue and manage costs, and the overall performance of their fund(s).”