Against this uncertain backdrop, our expert panellists held a spirited and engaged discussion about the state of the market in the face of a series of extraordinary macro and technical factors, and assessed how the funding landscape was holding up for German corporates. Of course, the injection of central bank liquidity in Europe has acted as a volatility buffer and made funding markets pretty resilient. Borrowers have taken advantage of the good times and deftly navigated around volatility even

Heiko Möhringer BayernLB Heiko Möhringer works for BayernLB in DCM corporate origination and is responsible for national and international accounts. Dominik Müller Commerzbank Dominik Müller works for Commerzbank in Frankfurt and is responsible for loans, particularly for German and Scandinavian clients. Marc Müller Deutsche Bank Marc Müller is co-head of EMEA corporate origination at Deutsche Bank. Morris Guterman Helaba Morris Gutermann is responsible for corporate origination at Landesbank He

IFR: Good afternoon, thank you for attending our fifth annual roundtable on German corporate funding. We have seen a lot of volatility and uncertainty this year, in part fuelled by monetary policy divergence between the US, Japan and the eurozone. We have negative bond yields in Europe even for new issues; a new US president-elect not to mention geopolitical conflict. How has the market held up to all this pressure? Ingo Nolden, HSBC: We’ve all scratched our heads at times, wondering how the mar

IFR: What about the bond market? Dominik Buric, LBBW: It’s a question of whether corporates have the relevant funding requirements. When we talk to corporates, they tell us it’s not a question of funding M&A transactions; it’s about finding the right target, one that fits your business model, your strategy. Funding it, through equity or hybrids or bonds, or even with a basic acquisition loan, is no problem today. For general capex, corporates have improved their balance sheets and working ca

IFR: Have you seen growth in institutional loan carve-outs in syndicate structures? Dominik Müller, Commerzbank: It’s a good question that has been asked for many years and the answer is always no, we haven’t seen these investors on the corporate side. They have different return requirements in most cases. Corporate financings, particularly in this environment of high liquidity, do not attract institutional investors. Ingo Nolden, HSBC: What concerns me is it appears that the classic funding rou