The Syndicate IFR

David Bowie turned heads with his 1997 sale of bonds backed by his vast song catalogue. The deal, which traced its roots back to the early 1970s, promised to completely revolutionise the music industry.

 
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How the sleepy financial market of Stockholm gave birth to one of the biggest innovations in 21st century finance – and helped channel hundreds of billions of dollars to saving the planet.
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When the World Bank turned to IBM with a novel bit of financial engineering that would help it save vital projects in the developing world, it inadvertently kickstarted a market that a generation later would bring the global economy close to collapse.
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A plucky group of visionaries persuaded an Italian motorway operator to take a gamble on a new idea in 1963. In the process they helped create a market that today is worth around $30trn.
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The 1987 stock market crash came at the worst possible time for some of the world’s biggest banks – just as they were on the hook for the largest share sale ever seen. The UK government faced an impossible dilemma: pull the deal or let banks go under.
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Larry Page and Sergey Brin hoped to revolutionise the way that companies go public with the IPO of their search engine in 2004. But they weren’t prepared for how far some would go to ensure that they failed.
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