The Lending and Secured Finance Review, edited by Azadeh Nassiri of Slaughter and May, shares expertise on the developments in the corporate lending and secured finance markets in 23 different jurisdictions, and on the challenges and opportunities facing market participants. The information and guidance herein comes at an important time for this area of law, with concerns about Brexit, slow Eurozone growth, and the threat of US market deregulation to UK and European financial markets among multiple geopolitical risk factors on the horizon. Contributors include: Henri Wagner and Francois-Guillaume de Liedekerke, Allen & Overy LLP; Monica Thurmond and Eric J Stoller, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP; and Peter Lake, Slaughter and May.

We study bank portfolio allocations during the transition of the real sector to a knowledge economy in which firms use less tangible capital and invest more in intangible assets. We show that, as firms shift toward intangible assets that have lower collateral values, banks reallocate their portfolios away from commercial loans toward other assets, primarily residential real estate loans and liquid assets. This effect is more pronounced for large and less well capitalized banks and is robust to controlling for real estate loan demand. Our results suggest that increased firm investment in intangible assets can explain up to 20% of bank portfolio reallocation from commercial to residential lending over the last four decades.

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 60.00, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (CEFIMS), course: Finanicial Law, language: English, abstract: Living in an uncertain economy with financial instability, makes it harder to bring about secure financial transactions. Indeed, the availability of information regarding the borrower to the lender has been seen as asymmetrical and led to some problems associated with credit risk. Hence the need for security for the lender. In this case, floating charge in particular is an English innovation in security that very well serves both borrower’s and lender’s objectives.