Europe is seeing rapid growth in data centres – facilities notorious for high resource consumption – often in regions already facing water stress. The trend adds a significant sustainability challenge on top of the data centres’ heavy energy consumption.

The recent collapse of First Brands, in casting a shadow over the direct-lending sector in the US, raises important questions: does the rapid growth in private credit amplify corporate credit risk and will this be different in Europe compared with the US?

Climate change can materially affect the creditworthiness of all issuer types and asset classes, so we have harmonised our general framework for capturing this risk, which can be applied to produce issuer-specific Key Climate Risk Indicators (KCRIs).

Spain needs to encourage more investment in its electricity grid and storage capacity by allowing utilities to earn higher returns while ensuring growing volumes of renewable energy do not distort market pricing.

Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium need far more investment to modernise their electricity transmission grids through 2034 than southern European countries, hence the importance of having secured most of the EUR 200bn-plus in required funding.

US plans to slap hefty tariffs on pharmaceutical imports have led European firms to speed up US investment and reset supply chains, the full credit impact of which will depend on the products targeted and whether the extra costs compromise innovation.

LANXESS moves to divest Envalior stake, supporting deleveraging strategy and investment-grade credit metrics

Europe’s real estate market will continue to diverge in credit quality amid residual investor nervousness about assets and owners exposed to refinancing risk, rising refurbishment costs, the uncertain economic outlook and adverse trends in demand.

Two years of rating pressure on European corporates shows signs of easing but credit risk remains tilted to the downside for the rest of 2025 given geopolitical uncertainty, economic headwinds and challenging financing conditions for the smallest firms.

The planned acquisition of Ceconomy AG by Chinese retailer JD.com could mark an important shift in European consumer-electronics retailing by creating a more formidable, deep-pocketed player in an already highly competitive sector.