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◆ Ukraine restructures $20bn of bonds 
◆ Excitement in digital bonds 
◆ Is UK water going down the plughole?

Swiftly after Ukraine was invaded by Russia, it agreed a two year suspension of debt service with bond investors. That expires on August 1. While many thought Ukraine would negotiate an extension, it has chosen instead to do a full restructuring, issuing new bonds in exchange for the old. We explore why, and whether this was a wise move.

We are reaching the mid-point of the European Central Bank’s trials of distributed ledger technology for financial markets, including bonds ― a festival of experimentation in which banks, clearing houses, central banks and tech firms are trying different ways to get bond deals on to blockchains. There are strong hints we are about to get the first DLT bond from a eurozone sovereign.

Supplying the most basic commodity, water, as a regulated monopoly sounds fairly straightforward, and not likely to generate a lot of credit risk. But Thames Water was downgraded to junk by Moody’s this week. If S&P follows suit, the once unthinkable will have happened: a UK water company breaching its licence due to credit weakness. How will the capital markets react?