Commerzbank

Huhtamaki, the Finnish producer of food and drink packaging, signed a €400m five year revolving facility last week. The company sold its plastic films business in December and is consolidating its business into food packaging.

Woori Bank opened books to its first dollar bond this year on Wednesday, January 14, as the South Korean lender was encouraged by the relatively successful outcomes of compatriot Export Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) earlier this week.

French chemical company Arkema has completed the long term financing of its acquisition of Bostik, with a €700m 10 year senior bond on Tuesday.

Pirelli, the Italian tyre maker, has revved up the year's loan market business with a €1bn facility signed last week, that the company said was three times oversubscribed.

Book sizes for Tuesday’s offerings of senior fixed rate deals have fallen sharply, compared to the unusually swollen orders placed for new issues in recent days, but the market is still steaming ahead.

Demand was robust for floating rate paper on Tuesday as Commonwealth Bank of Australia sold its first deal of 2015 and Caisse Centrale Desjardins du Quebec (CCDJ) returned to the senior unsecured euro market after an absence of almost five years.

The Epiphany holidays in Europe on Tuesday may have disrupted the issuance calendar for the week, but that didn’t stop issuers from printing over €15.5bn of senior unsecured debt in just two days on Wednesday and Thursday.

Barclays Bank re-opened the primary covered bond market on Monday by issuing a £1bn ($1.51bn) three year sterling benchmark, and was followed by a pair of Canadian borrowers.

Abbey National and Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel have opened up 2015's market for fixed rate senior unsecured bank bonds, offering investors longer tenors than the three floaters from other issuers also in the market today.

Zenith Bank of Nigeria is signing a $300m loan today – its first in the international syndicated loan market. The deal was increased from $250m after being oversubscribed.

Schuldschein bankers are hoping to continue the market's expansion in 2015 to include more borrowers from outside German-speaking countries, even though some recent international deals have not gone according to plan.

Strong deals from Liquid Telecom, Fidelity Bank, Lake Turkana Wind Power and Africa Finance Corp in recent weeks have highlighted the popularity of supranational and telecoms deals in Africa.