Tackling your board's next big question

As geopolitical uncertainty is off the charts, interest rate risk is back in a big way. What does this mean for CFOs who need to refinance in 2026? Is now the time to strike? And if so… are you refi ready?

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Think back three months to when you were popping that bottle of New Year’s Champagne. There was a very different picture for interest rates...

Sure, you’ve got debt maturing in late 2026, but it’s not pressing. The central banks have done a reasonable job of managing inflation, and it looks like interest rates are due for cuts throughout the year.

You’ve got time to manage debt; you can’t wait forever, but there’s no emergency either. 

Then war breaks out. 

And now you’ve got tough decisions to make. 

For many CFOs, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and inflationary pressure drive a flight to safety; secure credit and rates early, while they're still available. But move too fast, and you could end up locked into elevated rates for years and give up flexibility when conditions shift again.

If you are being forced to move quickly on credit in this market, you are exposed to forces infinitely more powerful than you. But on the flipside, for organizations that have prepared, now is a time of opportunity. 

"Don't run out of runway - time runway - because no board is going to give you anything other than a super hard time if you do,” said William Allen, CEO of Newbrook Capital Solutions. “If the economics of the current market work for you and you can take a locked-in cost of capital to your board with certainty, then you're doing the job."

The smart CFOs are not the ones who called the market correctly - let’s be honest, that’s mostly luck. They are the ones who had their scenarios built, investors warm, boards onside, and data rooms ready, so they could move quickly, whatever the macro throws at them.

So, how to get there?

Before February 28, the financing outlook on both sides of the Atlantic looked positive. The US Fed was sitting at 3.5%–3.75%, with two cuts predicted in 2026. The ECB had made eight cuts since June 2024, bringing its deposit facility rate from 4% to 2%, with forecasters broadly expecting more rate cuts this year. Inflation was settling down, and for CFOs with runway and maturities not yet pressing, there was no immediate pressure to refinance debt.

But the Iran war changed all that. Rising oil prices are pushing up inflation. The Eurozone saw inflation jump from 1.9% in February to 2.5% in March. US forecasters are predicting a 1% increase in the Consumer Price Index for March, the largest monthly jump since 2022. And oil-driven inflation takes months to move through supply chains, so inflation will get worse over the next couple of months. 

Markets are now pricing an 88% chance the ECB raises rates at its next meeting, a complete reversal from where things stood just weeks ago. In the US, economists can't even agree on the direction: the latest NABE survey shows them nearly evenly split between zero, one, and two Fed cuts this year.

And geopolitical uncertainty stifles banks’ risk appetite almost immediately, often well ahead of any central bank action. As risk premiums climb, capital becomes both scarcer and more expensive. Sometimes, many of the credit markets just shut as short-term capital flees to safety.

And hoping for the best isn’t an effective strategy. 

"A number of people are now realizing that you can't really second-guess this sort of geopolitical instability we're in,” said Allen. “This idea of waiting for a prolonged period of macro stability? I just don't think you're going to see that.”

Some companies don’t have a refinancing choice. Over the last three years, companies took advantage of falling rates and favorable conditions. So favorable that corporates issued a record amount of debt in 2025, according to S&P Global. That gave CFOs some breathing room on terms and allowed them to lock in better spreads. But that bill is coming due. 

Global corporate debt maturities hit $2.98 trillion in 2028, including $851 billion in speculative-grade debt alone, more than three times what's due this year, according to S&P Global. And since most companies start refinancing 12–24 months out, 2028 is no longer a future problem. It's this year's problem.

"When you're waiting to refinance, you're still locked into your current finance structure. There is a cost to delaying. You have to think of your expected rate savings from waiting, but in our current environment, you're not seeing a good expectation of rate savings,” said Brian Krogol, CFO at Standard Premium Finance. “And then you have to subtract out your estimate of spread widening and covenant deterioration."

Matthias Steinberg, CFO at finance platform MindBridge, has seen this dilemma up close.   When the company refinanced in Q3 last year, it stayed with its house bank. 

"Continuity with a solid partner, another two-year agreement, and reasonable rates. These factors fit our business model, and we prioritized them over trying to get too cute with markets," said Steinberg.

But the calculus has shifted. "Tariffs, geopolitical escalation, discussions about an AI bubble... If we still had half a year left in our term now, we probably would consider refinancing early," he said. 

There’s a lot going on beneath the surface here. Do you strike before the markets get even tighter or wait for the storm to pass? 

In deciding whether to move early, CFOs can’t just look at rates in a vacuum, but have to weigh both internal and external factors: 

Other considerations may include geopolitical analysis, for example, on how long the war in the Middle East might last and the potential impact on inventories and inflation, as well as intangibles such as increased bandwidth and flexibility to pursue strategic options for locking in rates early.

If that perception is worsening, it might strengthen the case for locking in a deal now if it’s still available on terms that suit your business.

For Krogol, timing and preparation made all the difference. 

“When we secured new debt in September 2025, we got lower rates and dramatically increased our borrowing limit,” he said. “When we refinanced in 2023, the lenders would barely budge on that. But now they’re bullish on our industry. We are also in a relatively tariff-proof sector and had several suitor banks, which boosted our negotiating leverage,” he said. 

Conditions can change drastically, so always be ready to “strike while the iron is hot” and push hard on rates and terms to support your future growth, added Krogol.

To ensure smooth discussions with your board on this topic, Steinberg and Krogol suggested maintaining regular dialogue with them on fundamental topics, such as capital structure and risk appetite. This way, you’ll already understand their thinking when big decisions are needed.

Krogol keeps that conversation running between meetings: "I like to let them know what's coming up, almost like a board newsletter. So in those meetings, they know what's happening, and we can have a more useful brainstorming session." 

Steinberg frames what boards actually need to hear: "You want to be able to articulate how you think about the risks introduced by global market shocks and the logic: why you are not refinancing, why you are refinancing. If the mandate is clear and there's a good dialogue, those discussions become very productive."

Want more? Check out this month’s Playbook where The Secret CFO dumps the AI hype and goes deep into the operational questions that really matter here.

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