NEW YORK , Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P Global Market Intelligence has released a report today highlighting the convergence in public and private credit markets. The newly published Public and Private Markets Outlook: Converging on Credit is part of S&P Global Market Intelligence's Big Picture 2025 Outlook Report Series. In this new report, S&P Global Market Intelligence's capital markets analysts highlight how public and private credit markets have become increasingly intertwined in 2024, and why we expect this trend to continue in 2025. Public debt markets have grown, but not at the expense of the $1.5 trillion private markets, which continue their rapid expansion. " It may be no coincidence that the fall in Credit Default Swap (CDS) credit events aligns with the growth in provision of private credit. Many companies now have recourse to lines of credit from private sources to an extent not seen in previous cycles. This trend is likely to continue in 2025 but may raise questions about the transparency and measurement of credit risk in private credit funds, where the exposure is ultimately shifted," said Gavan Nolan , Executive Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Key highlights from the report include: To request a copy of Public and Private Markets Outlook: Converging on Credit , please contact press.mi@spglobal.com . S&P Global Market Intelligence's opinions, quotes, and credit-related and other analyses are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact or recommendation to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security. About S&P Global Market Intelligence At S&P Global Market Intelligence, we understand the importance of accurate, deep and insightful information. Our team of experts delivers unrivaled insights and leading data and technology solutions, partnering with customers to expand their perspective, operate with confidence, and make decisions with conviction. S&P Global Market Intelligence is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI). S&P Global is the world's foremost provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. With every one of our offerings, we help many of the world's leading organizations navigate the economic landscape so they can plan for tomorrow, today. For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence . Media Contact Amanda Oey S&P Global Market Intelligence +1 212-438-1904 amanda.oey@spglobal.com or press.mi@spglobal.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sp-global-market-intelligences-new-outlook-report-shows-the-convergence-of-public-and-private-credit-markets-and-expects-the-trend-to-continue-into-2025-302313385.html SOURCE S&P Global Market IntelligenceDAMASCUS (AP) — Exuberant Syrians observed the first Friday prayers since the ouster of President Bashar Assad , gathering in the capital's historic main mosque, its largest square and around the country to celebrate the end of half a century of authoritarian rule. The newly installed interim prime minister delivered the sermon at the Umayyad Mosque, declaring that a new era of “freedom, dignity and justice” was dawning for Syria. The gatherings illustrated the dramatic changes that have swept over Syria less than a week after insurgents marched into Damascus and toppled Assad. Amid the jubilation, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with allies around the region and called for an “inclusive and non-sectarian” interim government. Blinken arrived in Iraq on a previously unannounced stop after talks in Jordan and Turkey, which backs some of the Syrian insurgent factions. So far, U.S. officials have not talked of direct meetings with Syria's new rulers. The main insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has worked to establish security and start a political transition after seizing Damascus early Sunday. The group has tried to reassure a public both stunned by Assad's fall and concerned about extremist jihadis among the rebels. Insurgent leaders say the group has broken with its extremist past, though HTS is still labeled a terrorist group by the United States and European countries. HTS's leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, appeared in a video message Friday congratulating “the great Syrian people for the victory of the blessed revolution.” “I invite them to head to the squares to show their happiness without shooting bullets and scaring people,” he said. “And then after, we will work to build this country, and as I said in the beginning, we will be victorious by the help of God.” Huge crowds, including some insurgents, packed the historic Umayyad Mosque in the capital's old city, many waving the rebel opposition flag — with its three red stars — which has swiftly replaced the Assad-era flag with with its two green stars. Syrian state television reported that the sermon was delivered by Mohammed al-Bashir, the interim prime minister installed by HTS this week. The scene resonated on multiple levels. The mosque, one of the world's oldest dating back some 1,200 years, is a beloved symbol of Syria, and sermons there like all mosque sermons across Syria were tightly controlled under Assad's rule. Also, in the early days of the anti-government uprising in 2011, protesters would leave Friday prayers to march in rallies against Assad before he launched a brutal crackdown that turned the uprising into a long and bloody civil war. “I didn’t step foot in Umayyad Mosque since 2011," because of the tight security controls around it, said one worshipper, Ibrahim al-Araby. “Since 11 or 12 years, I haven’t been this happy.” Another worshipper, Khair Taha, said there was “fear and trepidation for what’s to come. But there is also a lot of hope that now we have a say and we can try to build.” Blocks away in Damascus' biggest roundabout, named Umayyad Square, thousands gathered, including many families with small children — a sign of how, so far at least, the country's transformation has not caused violent instability. “Unified Syria to build Syria,” the crowd chanted. Some shouted slurs against Assad and his late father, calling them pigs, an insult that would have previously led to offenders being hauled off to one of the feared detention centers of Assad’s security forces. One man in the crowd, 51-year-old Khaled Abu Chahine — originally from the southern province of Daraa, where the 2011 uprising first erupted — said he hoped for “freedom and coexistence between all Syrians, Alawites, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze.” The interim prime minister, al-Bashir, had been the head of a de facto administration created by HTS in Idlib, the opposition's enclave in northwest Syria. The rebels were bottled up in Idlib for years before fighters broke out in a shock offensive and marched across Syria in 10 days. Similar scenes of joy unfolded in other major cities, including in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Raqqa. Al-Sharaa, HTS' leader, has promised to bring a pluralistic government to Syria, seeking to dispel fears among many Syrians — especially its many minority communities — that the insurgents will impose a hard-line, extremist rule. Another key factor will be winning international recognition for a new government in a country where multiple foreign powers have their hands in the mix. The Sunni Arab insurgents who overthrew Assad did so with vital help from Turkey, a longtime foe of the U.S.-backed Kurds . Turkey controls a strip of Syrian territory along the shared border and backs an insurgent faction uneasily allied to HTS — and is deeply opposed to any gains by Syria's Kurds. In other developments, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey’s Embassy in Damascus would reopen Saturday for the first time since 2012, when it closed due to the Syrian civil war. The U.S. has troops in eastern Syria to combat remnants of the Islamic State group and supports Kurdish-led fighters who rule most of the east. Since Assad's fall, Israel has bombed sites all over Syria, saying it is trying to prevent weapons from falling into extremist hands. It has also seized a swath of southern Syria along the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, calling it a buffer zone. After talks with Fidan, Blinken said there was “broad agreement” between Turkey and the U.S. on what they would like to see in Syria. That starts with an "interim government in Syria, one that is inclusive and non-sectarian and one that protects the rights of minorities and women” and does not “pose any kind of threat to any of Syria’s neighbors,” Blinken said. Fidan said the priority was “establishing stability in Syria as soon as possible, preventing terrorism from gaining ground, and ensuring that IS and the PKK aren’t dominant” — referring to the Islamic State group and the Kurdistan Workers Party. Ankara considers the PKK within Turkey's borders a terrorist group, as it does the Kurdish-backed forces in Syria backed by the U.S. A U.S. official said that in Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fidan both told Blinken that Kurdish attacks on Turkish positions would require a response. The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic talks. The U.S. has been trying to limit such incidents in recent days and had helped organize an agreement to prevent confrontations around the northern Syrian town of Manbij, which was taken by Turkey-backed opposition fighters from the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces earlier this week. In Baghdad, Blinken met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani, saying both countries wanted to ensure the Islamic State group — also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh — doesn't exploit Syria's transition to re-emerge. “Having put Daesh back in its box, we can’t let it out, and we’re determined to make sure that that doesn’t happen," Blinken said. The U.S. official who briefed reporters said that Blinken had impressed upon al-Sudani the importance of Iraq exercising its full sovereignty over its territory and airspace to stop Iran from transporting weapons and equipment to Syria, either for Assad supporters or onward to the militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon. Lee reported from Ankara, Turkey. Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.
It’s a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump's support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency. In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris , Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis. Certainly, Harris’ more than 7 million vote decline from President Joe Biden’s 2020 total was a factor in her loss, especially in swing-state metropolitan areas that have been the party’s winning electoral strongholds. But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than he did four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing Electoral College victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote. Trump cut into places where Harris needed to overperform to win a close election. Now Democrats are weighing how to regain traction ahead of the midterm elections in two years, when control of Congress will again be up for grabs and dozens of governors elected. There were some notable pieces to how Trump's victory came together: Though Trump improved across the map, his gains were particularly noteworthy in urban counties home to the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, electoral engines that stalled for Harris in industrial swing states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Harris fell more than 50,000 votes — and 5 percentage points — short of Biden's total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion's share of the Detroit metro area. She was almost 36,000 votes off Biden's mark in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 short in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It wasn't only Harris' shortfall that helped Trump carry the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively carried in six of the seven previous elections before Nov. 5. Trump added to his 2020 totals in all three metro counties, netting more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and almost 4,000 in Milwaukee County. It’s not yet possible to determine whether Harris fell short of Biden’s performance because Biden voters stayed home or switched their vote to Trump — or how some combination of the two produced the rightward drift evident in each of these states. Harris advertised heavily and campaigned regularly in each, and made Milwaukee County her first stop as a candidate with a rally in July. These swings alone were not the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but her weaker performance than Biden across the three metros helped Trump, who held on to big 2020 margins in the three states' broad rural areas and improved or held steady in populous suburbs. Trump's team and outside groups supporting him knew from their data that he was making inroads with Black voters, particularly Black men younger than 50, more concentrated in these urban areas that have been key to Democratic victories. When James Blair, Trump's political director, saw results coming in from Philadelphia on election night, he knew Trump had cut into the more predominantly Black precincts, a gain that would echo in Wayne and Milwaukee counties. “The data made clear there was an opportunity there,” Blair said. AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Democrats won Senate races in Michigan and Wisconsin but lost in Pennsylvania. In 2026, they will be defending governorships in all three states and a Senate seat in Michigan. Despite the burst of enthusiasm Harris' candidacy created among the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she ended up receiving fewer votes than Biden in three of the seven states where she campaigned almost exclusively. In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania. In four others — Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — Harris won more votes than Biden did. But Trump's support grew by more — in some states, significantly more. That dynamic is glaring in Georgia, where Harris received almost 73,000 more votes than Biden did when he very narrowly carried the state. But Trump added more than 200,000 to his 2020 total, en route to winning Georgia by roughly 2 percentage points. In Wisconsin, Trump's team reacted to slippage it saw in GOP-leaning counties in suburban Milwaukee by targeting once-Democratic-leaning, working-class areas, where Trump made notable gains. In the three largest suburban Milwaukee counties — Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha — which have formed the backbone of GOP victories for decades, Harris performed better than Biden did in 2020. She also gained more votes than Trump gained over 2020, though he still won the counties. That made Trump's focus on Rock County, a blue-collar area in south central Wisconsin, critical. Trump received 3,084 more votes in Rock County, home of the former automotive manufacturing city of Janesville, than he did in 2020, while Harris underperformed Biden's 2020 total by seven votes. That helped Trump offset Harris' improvement in Milwaukee's suburbs. The focus speaks to the strength Trump has had and continued to grow with middle-income, non-college educated voters, the Trump campaign's senior data analyst Tim Saler said. “If you're going to have to lean into working-class voters, they are particularly strong in Wisconsin,” Saler said. “We saw huge shifts from 2020 to 2024 in our favor.” Of the seven most competitive states, Arizona saw the smallest increase in the number of votes cast in the presidential contest — slightly more than 4,000 votes, in a state with more than 3.3 million ballots cast. That was despite nearly 30 campaign visits to Arizona by Trump, Harris and their running mates and more than $432 million spent on advertising by the campaigns and allied outside groups, according to the ad-monitoring firm AdImpact. Arizona, alone of the seven swing states, saw Harris fall short of Biden across small, midsize and large counties. In the other six states, she was able to hold on in at least one of these categories. Even more telling, it is also the only swing state where Trump improved his margin in every single county. While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous as the home to Phoenix, dipped slightly from 2020 — by 14,199 votes, a tiny change in a county where more than 2 million people voted — Trump gained almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago. Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden's total, contributing to a shift significant enough to swing the county and state to Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020. The biggest leaps to the right weren't taking place exclusively among Republican-leaning counties, but also among the most Democratic-leaning counties in the states. Michigan's Wayne County swung 9 points toward Trump, tying the more Republican-leaning Antrim County for the largest movement in the state. AP VoteCast found that voters were most likely to say the economy was the most important issue facing the country in 2024, followed by immigration. Trump supporters were more motivated by economic issues and immigration than Harris', the survey showed. “It’s still all about the economy," said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won North Carolina’s governorship on Nov. 5 as Trump also carried the state. “Democrats have to embrace an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms that people get, rather than giving them a dissertation of economic policy,” he said. Governor’s elections in 2026 give Democrats a chance to test their understanding and messaging on the issue, said Democratic pollster Margie Omero, whose firm has advised Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the past and winning Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego this year. “So there’s an opportunity to really make sure people, who governors have a connection to, are feeling some specificity and clarity with the Democratic economic message,” Omero said. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Romania’s presidential elections are heading towards a shock result after the first round held on Sunday, November 24. With about 80% of the votes counted and centralized, independent candidate Calin Georgescu is in the lead, ahead of social democrat prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Calin Georgescu, 63, has a doctorate in pedology and has worked as a specialist in the environment conservation sector. His messages position him as a candidate with strong nationalistic. The partial results indicated over 1.73 million votes for Georgescu, representing 22% of the 7.85 million ballots counted so far, versus 1.64 million votes (20.9%) for PM Ciolacu. Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi (USR) was third, with 1.33 million votes (17% of the total), followed by far-right leader George Simion (AUR), with 1.13 million votes (14.4% of the total). Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca was fifth (9.3%) and independent Mircea Geoana, the former NATO deputy secretary general, was only sixth (6.0%). If the current hierarchy doesn’t change, the second round will be fought between independent Calin Georgescu and PSD’s Marcel Ciolacu. However, there were still almost 2 million ballots to count and centralize, mostly from Bucharest and bigger cities and from Diaspora, which may help the USR’s Elena Lasconi close the gap on the top two. The first results coming from abroad from countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain point to an overwhelming vote for Georgescu, according to data centralized by the platform . Meanwhile, the first results from Bucharest, where only 25% of the ballot have been centralized, indicate a score of around 33% for Elena Lasconi, about double compared with PM Marcel Ciolacu. This may result in a tight race for second place between Lasconi and Ciolacu, currently split by about 300,000 votes. If the PM fails to make it to the second round, this will be the biggest shock recorded in Romania's post-Communist elections and the first time that the Social-Democrats are left without a candidate in the final. Even with the PSD leader narrowly qualifying in second place, the results are a total shock for the political establishment in Bucharest, as nobody predicted such a high score for an independent candidate who was almost absent from mainstream media during the campaign. Instead, Calin Georgescu’s campaign focused almost exclusively on social media channels such as Facebook and TikTok, where he gained a lot of traction. The exit polls showed PM Marcel Ciolacu comfortably in the lead, with 25%, and Elena Lasconi second, with 18%, followed by Calin Georgescu with 16%. Meanwhile, the polls carried out since the beginning of November didn't even point to Georgescu as a potential contender for the second round, as his score was estimated at about 5%. Meanwhile, everyone expected a three-way battle for the second place between AUR leader George Simion, PNL's Nicolae Ciuca and USR's Elena Lasconi. The results also show that Romanian voters are profoundly unhappy with the governing parties - PSD and PNL - whose candidates took just about 30% of the votes. Meanwhile, the nationalist current, represented by AUR's George Simion and independent Calin Georgescu, has reached a score of 36%. This leaves the parliamentary elections scheduled for next Sunday, December 1 (Romania's National Day), open to a surprise result as well, depending on who Georgescu's voters decide to support. He is not currently affiliated with any political party, although he was AUR's proposal for the prime minister seat after the 2020 elections. Romania’s presidential elections are heading towards a shock result after the first round held on Sunday, November 24. With about 80% of the votes counted and centralized, independent candidate Calin Georgescu is in the lead, ahead of social democrat prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Calin Georgescu, 63, has a doctorate in pedology and has worked as a specialist in the environment conservation sector. His messages position him as a candidate with strong nationalistic. The partial results indicated over 1.73 million votes for Georgescu, representing 22% of the 7.85 million ballots counted so far, versus 1.64 million votes (20.9%) for PM Ciolacu. Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi (USR) was third, with 1.33 million votes (17% of the total), followed by far-right leader George Simion (AUR), with 1.13 million votes (14.4% of the total). Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca was fifth (9.3%) and independent Mircea Geoana, the former NATO deputy secretary general, was only sixth (6.0%). If the current hierarchy doesn’t change, the second round will be fought between independent Calin Georgescu and PSD’s Marcel Ciolacu. However, there were still almost 2 million ballots to count and centralize, mostly from Bucharest and bigger cities and from Diaspora, which may help the USR’s Elena Lasconi close the gap on the top two. The first results coming from abroad from countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain point to an overwhelming vote for Georgescu, according to data centralized by the platform . Meanwhile, the first results from Bucharest, where only 25% of the ballot have been centralized, indicate a score of around 33% for Elena Lasconi, about double compared with PM Marcel Ciolacu. This may result in a tight race for second place between Lasconi and Ciolacu, currently split by about 300,000 votes. If the PM fails to make it to the second round, this will be the biggest shock recorded in Romania's post-Communist elections and the first time that the Social-Democrats are left without a candidate in the final. Even with the PSD leader narrowly qualifying in second place, the results are a total shock for the political establishment in Bucharest, as nobody predicted such a high score for an independent candidate who was almost absent from mainstream media during the campaign. Instead, Calin Georgescu’s campaign focused almost exclusively on social media channels such as Facebook and TikTok, where he gained a lot of traction. The exit polls showed PM Marcel Ciolacu comfortably in the lead, with 25%, and Elena Lasconi second, with 18%, followed by Calin Georgescu with 16%. Meanwhile, the polls carried out since the beginning of November didn't even point to Georgescu as a potential contender for the second round, as his score was estimated at about 5%. Meanwhile, everyone expected a three-way battle for the second place between AUR leader George Simion, PNL's Nicolae Ciuca and USR's Elena Lasconi. The results also show that Romanian voters are profoundly unhappy with the governing parties - PSD and PNL - whose candidates took just about 30% of the votes. Meanwhile, the nationalist current, represented by AUR's George Simion and independent Calin Georgescu, has reached a score of 36%. This leaves the parliamentary elections scheduled for next Sunday, December 1 (Romania's National Day), open to a surprise result as well, depending on who Georgescu's voters decide to support. He is not currently affiliated with any political party, although he was AUR's proposal for the prime minister seat after the 2020 elections. Romania’s presidential elections are heading towards a shock result after the first round held on Sunday, November 24. With about 80% of the votes counted and centralized, independent candidate Calin Georgescu is in the lead, ahead of social democrat prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Calin Georgescu, 63, has a doctorate in pedology and has worked as a specialist in the environment conservation sector. His messages position him as a candidate with strong nationalistic. The partial results indicated over 1.73 million votes for Georgescu, representing 22% of the 7.85 million ballots counted so far, versus 1.64 million votes (20.9%) for PM Ciolacu. Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi (USR) was third, with 1.33 million votes (17% of the total), followed by far-right leader George Simion (AUR), with 1.13 million votes (14.4% of the total). Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca was fifth (9.3%) and independent Mircea Geoana, the former NATO deputy secretary general, was only sixth (6.0%). If the current hierarchy doesn’t change, the second round will be fought between independent Calin Georgescu and PSD’s Marcel Ciolacu. However, there were still almost 2 million ballots to count and centralize, mostly from Bucharest and bigger cities and from Diaspora, which may help the USR’s Elena Lasconi close the gap on the top two. The first results coming from abroad from countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain point to an overwhelming vote for Georgescu, according to data centralized by the platform . Meanwhile, the first results from Bucharest, where only 25% of the ballot have been centralized, indicate a score of around 33% for Elena Lasconi, about double compared with PM Marcel Ciolacu. This may result in a tight race for second place between Lasconi and Ciolacu, currently split by about 300,000 votes. If the PM fails to make it to the second round, this will be the biggest shock recorded in Romania's post-Communist elections and the first time that the Social-Democrats are left without a candidate in the final. Even with the PSD leader narrowly qualifying in second place, the results are a total shock for the political establishment in Bucharest, as nobody predicted such a high score for an independent candidate who was almost absent from mainstream media during the campaign. Instead, Calin Georgescu’s campaign focused almost exclusively on social media channels such as Facebook and TikTok, where he gained a lot of traction. The exit polls showed PM Marcel Ciolacu comfortably in the lead, with 25%, and Elena Lasconi second, with 18%, followed by Calin Georgescu with 16%. Meanwhile, the polls carried out since the beginning of November didn't even point to Georgescu as a potential contender for the second round, as his score was estimated at about 5%. Meanwhile, everyone expected a three-way battle for the second place between AUR leader George Simion, PNL's Nicolae Ciuca and USR's Elena Lasconi. The results also show that Romanian voters are profoundly unhappy with the governing parties - PSD and PNL - whose candidates took just about 30% of the votes. Meanwhile, the nationalist current, represented by AUR's George Simion and independent Calin Georgescu, has reached a score of 36%. This leaves the parliamentary elections scheduled for next Sunday, December 1 (Romania's National Day), open to a surprise result as well, depending on who Georgescu's voters decide to support. He is not currently affiliated with any political party, although he was AUR's proposal for the prime minister seat after the 2020 elections.