Crédit Agricole

After a run of triple-B rated corporate bond issuance, A-rated names have returned to the market and paid lower premiums than the higher beta issuers had, but 10.75 years remains the longest tenor to date.

Crédit Agricole paid a small premium to investors to launch a new short-dated floating rate note on Wednesday, adding to a flurry of senior trades from French banks at the start of the year.

The European Investment Bank and Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten showed the strength of the dollar market on Tuesday as they sparked the sector into life for 2019 with benchmarks offering minimal concession. Another pair of SSAs are hoping to emulate that success on Wednesday.

Belgium and KfW received well oversubscribed order books for 10 year euro benchmarks on Tuesday, with several public sector borrowers set to follow in the euro market this week.

UniCredit has hired Audrey Sebban as head of debt capital markets, FIG and SSA for France, the bank said on Tuesday.

First it was a pair of car finance issuers. Then came a pair of utilities. And on Tuesday it was a pair of telecoms companies that came to the corporate bond market. But the latest couple really got investors revved up with more than €16.5bn of orders placed.

Slovenia hit screens with the first sovereign bond of 2019 on Monday, undergoing some price discovery but closing a successful deal and paving the way for other countries to follow suit.

Crédit Agricole managed to reach considerable size expectations and raise €1.5bn of covered bond funding in the challenging 10 year tenor on Monday. Although a tighter price might have been possible on Friday, the issuer’s size ambitions would probably have been thwarted.

The corporate bond market saw its second day of issuance in the new year on Monday when French multi-utility Veolia and Belgian electricity grid operator Elia sold new deals.

The Slovenian government is out with a 10 year euro bond issue on Monday, which will be priced later today. Bankers away from the deal say the highly rated issuer is a good soft test of investor appetite for CEEMEA debt.

Electricité de France, the Paris-based electricity company, raised a Rmb122m ($17.8m) one year bilateral loan through Crédit Agricole CIB (China) on December 20.

As is becoming traditional in the European corporate bond market, car finance issuers sold the first new issues of the year. The fact the market had to wait just one day was a positive, considering that the backdrop was largely unchanged from the end of 2018, when the market had been difficult to access. However, there were some warning signs other issuers will do well to heed.