The Ledger

Europe’s 2025 CMBS cohort offers a clear window on private valuations. Using disclosures across €6.9 billion of issuance, we show how appraised marks diverge from rating-agency values, with most deals in a 23% to 34% haircut band and a 29.6% median. The piece explains why this gap emerges, where it may persist in private markets with thin price discovery, and how investors should treat reported cushions and re-underwrite cash flows.

Life insurers have tilted away from Treasuries into structured and private credit, propelled by private equity ownership and NAIC treatment. Those flows are repricing markets, consistent with inelastic markets research that small, persistent allocations move prices. Record CLO issuance shows the shift; First Brands’ bankruptcy flags underwriting risk. The next test arrives as rules tighten in 2026.

PE-linked insurers now run a four-cylinder capacity engine: asset-intensive reinsurance lowers required capital; tax positioning lifts retained earnings; evolving solvency rules reshape charges on private assets; and short-horizon balance sheet funding via funding agreements and FHLB advances converts claims-paying strength into deployable cash. Together these steps explain the post-2019 surge in insurer deployable capital.

Credit has migrated from banks to private platforms, and the centre of gravity has moved with it. Insurers, through asset-intensive reinsurance, are releasing capital and shaping who is financed, on what terms, and when liquidity turns. The same channel that supplies credit in calm periods can amplify stress when cushions shrink. We map how this transmission affects pricing, liquidity, funding terms, and exits across markets.

Private credit is recasting the circuitry of the financial system. In the final part of our Summer Series, we examine how insurance affiliates, NAV lines, and offshore reinsurance transmit stress. The system does not need to break to fail. Sometimes pressure just moves faster than recognition.

"Extend and pretend" is not a post-GFC invention. It is a century-old instinct. In Part II of our Summer Series, we explore how debt deferral, maturity wall fears, and strategic inaction have repeated across cycles, from 1930s bank policy to 1990s Japan to today's CRE market. With historical quotes, visuals, and behavioral insight, we examine why delay often becomes the most rational path, until it no longer is.

As capital markets recalibrate around sustainability and obsolescence risk, the office sector faces a stark financing divide. Modern, green assets are commanding tighter spreads and higher leverage, while legacy buildings are being priced out of the debt market entirely. In this analysis, we explore how lenders are redrawing the underwriting rulebook and what it means for the future of office real estate.

Stranded assets pose risks and opportunities. Explore how ESG, green retrofits, and tenant demand are reshaping CRE investments globally.

Catastrophe bonds provide a key insight into climate risk pricing, helping CRE investors align portfolios with rising climate-related risks.