Foreword 3

Acknowledgements 4

Editorial 5

Abbreviations and acronyms 9

Executive summary 11

1. Sovereign borrowing outlook 15

Borrowing requirements and outstanding debt trends 17

Issuance by instruments and maturity 22

Outstanding debt trends 29

Secondary market developments and their impact on borrowing costs 36

Liquidity and volatility in bond and repo markets 45

References 47

Annex 1.A. Methods and sources 49

Annex 1.B. Sustainable bonds 54

Annex 1.C. EMDE marketable debt calculations 56

Annex 1.D. Single country yield curves 58

Notes 59

2. Corporate debt market outlook in a transforming world 61

Corporate debt markets in a transforming world 63

Headline developments in global corporate debt markets 64

Interpreting compressed credit spreads in an otherwise volatile environment 67

The role of debt markets in financing the AI expansion 80

Are debt markets becoming more like equity markets? 87

References 92

Annex 2.A. Outstanding amounts of corporate debt by country as of end-2025 95

Annex 2.B. Data collection and methodology 96

Annex 2.C. Credit spread decomposition 98

3. The investor base for government and corporate bond markets 107

The changing structure of global bond markets 109

The evolution of the investor base for government and corporate bonds 112

Drivers of changes in the investor base 125

Implications of the changing investor base on market dynamics and issuance strategies 134

Current challenges and outlook 138

References 142

Annex 3.A. Methodology 150

Annex 3.B. Motives and strategies for entities involved in sovereign and corporate bond markets152

Notes 156