Bloomberg News

Welcome to Bloomberg’s new Banking Industry Monitor, bringing to you the top news on the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up: bloom.bg/4e65HY2 From the first edition: The war for talent and coping with regulators were recurring themes this week, along with signs that the drought in deal-making is still a drag on profits. Read more: bloom.bg/3HwT1NE

As creditors work through the rubble of Germany's biggest property crash since the financial crisis, a picture emerges of a market built on complex, multi-layered financings, with small pension funds often accounting for the riskiest parts. Stepping in to fill the void left by banks, and desperate for yield in an era of negative interest rates, they bought into optimistic valuations in the late stages of the boom, Libby Cherry, Luca Casiraghi and I report. https://lnkd.in/evPdZ9NG The funds piled into private credit when banks pulled back from risky lending after the financial crisis. Mezzanine or subordinated debt — lower-ranking financing that would take losses before the senior loan often provided by banks — became a key way to fill the gap. Many institutional investors saw the asset class as a way to meet return targets when interest rates turned negative in 2014. But now, they are faced with restructurings, ultimately forcing them to tap reserves and suspend pension increases. 

Some of the biggest losers from Germany's property crash are only now beginning to emerge: the country's many pension funds catering to professions such as doctors, pharmacists and dentists. Several of them provided funding to real estate projects that have since gone awry, causing painful losses from Libby Cherry, Arno Schuetze and Luca Casiraghi, edits from Christian Baumgaertel https://lnkd.in/eyQYCRrf

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will be testing the limits of one of the more successful strategies of dealing with US President Donald Trump when he visits the White House this month.

Small pension funds helped finance Germany's biggest property bubble in years. Now many are proving to be losers of the private credit boom. Tap the link to read more: bloom.bg/3H6gu8B 📷️: Ben Kilb/Bloomberg

Pakistan and US officials are currently in discussions to finalize finer details of their trade deal that includes investments after securing the lowest tariff among major South Asian nations, according to Pakistan’s state finance minister.

ICYMI: CDP's Dennis Wan on why Asia needs climate adaptation finance now more than ever. “12% of the world’s population lives in a place that discloses information to CDP,” #SustainableBizSummit ⏯️ https://bloom.bg/3U6pTQf

China has long fretted about reserves of soybeans, which are a key element of the nation’s diet and livestock feed.

European nations are seeking to talk to Donald Trump ahead of the US president’s planned meeting in Alaska with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said this week’s US-Russian summit may open the door to negotiations about Ukrainian territory