Two years can seem like a long time. When Wall Street’s finest merger bankers and lawyers last convened in New Orleans for the Tulane Corporate Law Institute conference in March 2020, it was less than a week before cities across the United States first shut down to keep Covid-19 at bay. Stocks were plunging, but that didn’t stop advisers from clinking shared shrimp bowls while Centerview Partners founder Blair Effron touted the merits of special-purpose acquisition companies. Two record years of deal activity later, the conference is hopping again, this time against the backdrop of war in Europe. There are reasons

Western leaders are giving Vladimir Putin a rational default card. Sanctions give the Russian president more reason to renege on at least some of his $200 billion of sovereign debt. The fallout could leave creditors stuck for years. Judging by its balance sheet, Russia isn’t an obvious default candidate. When the country last reneged in 1998, its borrowings exceeded 130% of annual output. Last year they were less than 20%, only a fifth of which was in foreign currency. That gives Putin a cushion to cope with a collapsing currency and shrinking economy. The spiking crude price will also help

The world’s smallest violins are playing for Russia’s oligarchs. Or perhaps cellos, given that the European Union on Monday froze the assets of Sergei Roldugin, the Russian cellist, businessman and close friend of Vladimir Putin. Like billionaire oligarchs Alexei Mordashov, Mikhail Fridman, and a string of others, Roldugin has been blacklisted in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine for their links to the Russian president. That raises the question of what counterparties of their associated companies should do. The likes of Fridman and his business partner in 20 billion pound investment fund LetterOne, Petr Aven, have something to cling to. Had

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday upended financial markets. Through the fog, however, trading in U.S. bonds is sending the same two messages that it was before the military assault. One is that there’s a growing risk Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues may raise interest rates so quickly that they tip the U.S. economy into recession. The other is that the U.S. policy interest rate won’t rise too much above 2% in this economic cycle. Both signals may be wrong. The first warning comes from the gap between two-year and 10-year benchmark U.S. bond yields. This spread