BNP Paribas

The US’s imposition of an $8.9bn fine on BNP Paribas for involvement in breaking sanctions on Cuba, Iran and Sudan has shocked bankers in Europe.

Bayerische Landesbank took advantage of an empty market to price what could be one of the last covered bonds before the summer lull kicks in. The €500m seven year Pfandbrief attracted a heavily oversubscribed and granular book that gained solid momentum from the start — in contrast to other recently issued Pfandbriefe.

Webhelp, the French call centre operator, has set an original issue discount of 99.5 on its €120m increase to an existing €275m loan.

Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) has announced guidance on a tap of its 2019 bonds as well as a new 10 year. The deal follows a roadshow that wrapped up in Europe in mid June.

Peripheral European borrowers are set to benefit from a lack of competing supply and red hot demand this month. Conditions are strong enough this week for Portugal to launch a dollar bond in the tricky 10 year maturity, despite troubles affecting one the country’s leading banks — plus a short benchmark execution window.

Chinese company Giant Interactive has closed its $850m leveraged buyout loan almost three months after it opened into syndication, with eight banks joining the deal.

Taiwan Cement Corp has re-launched its $1bn loan into syndication, after its going-private deal failed to gather shareholder approval earlier in the year. Now the company has revised some of the terms and changed the final purpose of the fundraising ahead of opening to the market.

Jamaica made a triumphant return to bond markets on Tuesday just a year after its last debt restructuring, showing the appetite for yield among bond investors as the sovereign clinched its lowest ever coupon in international markets.

German industrial packaging group Mauser has priced the tranches of its $1.6bn acquisition loan at the tight end of guidance and inside it, while keeping covenant-lite terms on all tranches but one.

BNP Paribas is in "no rush" to issue new style additional tier one capital said chief financial officer Lars Machenil, with the bank taking a record-setting $8.97bn fine on the chin on Tuesday. The fine for helping clients evade US sanctions will trim the bank’s fully loaded common equity tier one ratio by 60bp to 10%, still higher than many of its European competitors.

The green bond theme is picking up steam with banks, as Deutsche Pfandbriefbank looks to become the next in a growing group of banks to issue socially responsible investment (SRI) bonds.

Chinese company Huawei Technologies has wrapped up syndication of its debut loan in the European market, as commitments pooled in to take the deal to a larger than targeted size of $1.6bn.