BNP Paribas

The euro high yield pipeline unveiled a battery of deals this week, six of them with ratings below double-B. The largest came from French frozen food retailer Picard Surgelés, which will refinance over €1bn of existing debt and pay a dividend to its private equity sponsors.

China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC) raised around $1.5bn from a dual currency, triple-tranche transaction on Monday, which included a green bond. The issuer’s ambition to raise funds at the long end of the curve meant it offered a juicy pick-up on the five-to-10 year dollar curve compared to other A-rated state-owned names.

China Education Group Holdings has opened books for its up to HK$3.5bn ($450m) IPO in Hong Kong, with high-profile investors such as GIC and International Finance Corp taking up cornerstone positions.

China Reform Holdings Corp, China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC), Hong Kong’s Pearl Holding III and Shimao Property Holdings are among the issuers in the market with new transactions on Monday.

Cemex, Thomas Cook, Telenet and Lowen Play injected €1.7bn of bond offerings into a visible high yield issuance pipeline already populated with Pinewood and CeramTec this week.

Greece was able to exchange more than €25bn of old bonds for new assets in an exercise designed to normalise the borrower’s curve. The offer ended on Tuesday, in the midst of discussions about the conditions that will be attached to Greece’s next tranche of emergency loans. The fresh curve should allow the borrower to return to capital markets twice in 2018.

BNP Paribas will join Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citigroup, and Société Générale as a systematic internaliser when MiFID II regulations come into effect in January.

UK distribution company Bunzl and UK logistics property company Tritax Big Box REIT both met with investors in the UK in the first half of this week before launching debut bond deals on Thursday, while Anglian Water Osprey Financing launched a transaction straight after an investor breakfast.

A trio of equity-linked issues this week was capped off on Thursday by a €100m convertible bond due in April 2023 from Pierre & Vacances, the French operator of tourist villages.

Private equity firm Ardian is ready to tap Europe’s leveraged finance markets to fund the acquisition of a controlling stake in Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques (DRT), the French plant chemistry specialist, but there are mixed views on the outlook for further M&A-fuelled leveraged finance activity.

Greece was able to exchange more than €25bn of old bonds for new assets in an exercise designed to normalise the borrower’s curve. The offer ended on Tuesday, in the midst of discussions about the conditions that will be attached to Greece’s next tranche of emergency loans.

Lead banks have scheduled a December date for the syndication of a €3bn equivalent multicurrency loan package that is supporting PAI and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation’s leveraged buyout of bottling company Refresco.