Business & Finance
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KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. — Moody’s assigns first-time Ba2 backed senior secured rating to KKR Real Estate Finance Trust’s Term Loan B; outlook stable

Edna J. May

Rating Action: Moody’s assigns first-time Ba2 backed senior secured rating to KKR Real Estate Finance Trust’s Term Loan B; outlook stable

New York, July 27, 2020 — Moody’s Investors Service, (“Moody’s”) has assigned a first-time Ba3 corporate family rating to KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. (KREF) and a backed Ba2 rating to the company’s senior secured term loan B, issued by subsidiary KREF Holdings X LLC. The outlook for both entities is stable.

The rapid and widening pandemic and corresponding deterioration in the global and US economic outlooks are leading to significant declines in commercial activity, eroding the financial … Read More

Business & Finance
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Who’s on top in the first sustainable finance league table?

Edna J. May

Welcome to Moral Money. Today we have:

Refinitiv launches the first-ever sustainable finance league tables

How the pandemic and PPE are adding to the plastic pollution problem

Junk bonds go green in Europe

More from the Financial Times

ESG proponents optimistic about US proxy adviser regulation

Investors fire back at US anti-ESG rule for retirement market

Refinitiv this week launched the first-ever league tables for sustainable finance, which represents an important milestone for the maturation of the ESG investing market.

The rankings cover a breadth of different sectors, listing the top banks and deals across debt and equity capital markets,

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Business & Finance
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German Finance Minister Knew of Wirecard Issues a Year Before Collapse

Edna J. May

(Bloomberg) — German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz was aware of potential market manipulation at Wirecard AG almost a year and a half before the company collapsed, putting pressure on a key figure in Angela Merkel’s government.

Financial watchdog BaFin informed Scholz in February 2019 about the case “because of the suspicion of a violation against the prohibition of market manipulation,” according to a report by the Finance Ministry seen by Bloomberg.

His early knowledge of the allegations swirling around Wirecard increases scrutiny on the highest-ranking Social Democrat in Merkel’s coalition and lays bare the delicate political dynamics just over a

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Business & Finance
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German finance minister points to regulatory failures in Wirecard scandal

Edna J. May

By Holger Hansen

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said lawmakers need to quickly determine how to tighten regulation in the wake of an accounting scandal at payments company Wirecard that has tarnished the reputation of Germany’s financial watchdog.

The Wirecard case “raises critical questions about supervision of the company, in particular with regards to accounting and balance sheet control,” Scholz told Reuters on Tuesday.

“It appears that neither auditors nor regulators were effective here,” he added.

The comments were an about-face from a brief statement he made on Monday, in which he said regulators had worked hard

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