BNP Paribas

Guarantor: Federal Republic of Germany

MOVES IN BRIEF

GDF Suez launched its second modern-style hybrid capital issue on Thursday in a successful €2bn transaction that contrasted with the rocky execution of its first issue in July 2013. The deal showed the corporate credit market bouncing back vigorously after five days of weak trading.

Storming conditions in dollars this week led to a series of blow-out deals — but a large amount of supply in the last two weeks, plus uncertainty over the outcome of upcoming European elections and what the European Central Bank will do at its next meeting could mean that issuance conditions won’t be red hot for much longer. Those problems could also affect euros — where issuers considering deals at the 10 year part of the curve have the added difficulty of offering a sufficiently enticing yield.

Profit taking has taken a toll on the periphery this week, but even as Italy’s government bonds continued to take a beating on Wednesday and the market for subordinated FIG debt softened, Italian insurer Poste Vita took to the market with a tier two capital transaction at a level that showed investors are still receptive to new deals.

After a long string of covered bond syndication success stories this year, demand showed signs of wavering on Tuesday when Landesbank Hessen-Thueringen (Helaba) issued a tightly priced two tranche Pfandbrief.

Chinese leasing company UT Capital Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Haitong Securities, launched its inaugural international bond - a three year dim sum – on Thursday.

SEB will sell sub debt on Thursday afternoon, drawing good demand for a tier two deal despite offering aggressive pricing. The Scandinavian bank will be joined by French insurance company Groupama which is exchanging perpetual sub debt for new paper.

Project Gemini, an offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea, has signed loans totalling €2.1bn in the largest ever financing for the wind sector, according to the borrower.

China’s Huawei Technologies launched a $1bn revolver into the European market on May 19 as it aims to expand its funding sources away from Asia.

Barclays, which is restructuring its global investment banking operations, has hired Dan Miller as head of equities sales trading for Hong Kong, China and Asean.

Xella International, the German building materials maker, today issued €325m of senior secured floating rate notes at par.