BNP Paribas

Mainland firm China East Education Holdings is seeking the greenlight to launch an IPO in Hong Kong.

Issuer rating: A2/A

German business software company SAP used its rarity value when it printed a €1.5bn triple tranche deal in March. However, that strategy may no longer be possible, after it sold the largest ever corporate bond priced in December to help fund its recently announced €8bn cash acquisition of experience management software provider Qualtrics.

After its successful debut in the Chinese ABS market, Genius Auto Finance, the joint venture between Geely Automobile Holdings and BNP Paribas Personal Finance, scored an equally popular follow-up deal at an even tighter price.

Policy lender China Development Bank printed a dual-currency, three-tranche transaction on Tuesday, raising $2.4bn-equivalent. While it paid just a couple of basis points of new issue premium for the dollar bonds amid a short-lived market rally, demand for the euro portion exceeded expectations.

Utility Thames Water has a signed a £1.4bn sustainability-linked revolving credit facility that its coordinators say is the first to be linked to an asset-specific Infrastructure GRESB rating.

Doosan Bobcat’s largest shareholder has bagged W141.9bn ($126.5m) after trimming its stake in the South Korean heavy equipment maker.

US medical technology company Stryker had to wait longer than it planned for its debut in the European corporate bond market, but when the chance to launch the deal came on Tuesday, it achieved the hat-trick of tranches it was aiming for with an extra one added for good measure.

French postal operator La Poste saved the corporate bond market in Europe from registering a blank week when it sold its first green bond last Friday. On Wednesday, Deutsche Post followed its peer’s lead by announcing a deal with the same tenor.

NatWest Markets has hired a senior BNP Paribas rates trader to head its US dollar linear rates trading team.

BNP Paribas has made an internal appointment for a sustainability research analyst in its recently launched markets research platform.

Edenred, the French operator of employee benefit schemes, discovered on Thursday that investors still have cash to put to work in the corporate bond market, even though eight deals had been priced in the first three days of the week and the end of the year is in sight.