Crédit Agricole

Kuwait’s Zain Group has signed a $700m five year revolving credit facility, with all lenders scaled back by the telecoms company following an oversubscription.

Demand for a new Credit Agricole €500m public sector seven year covered bond this week was weak, but bankers are confident that sentiment is set to remain broadly constructive.

The autumn term has definitely begun in Europe’s corporate bond market. BMW and Daimler, which launched deals last week, may have been the scholarship swots who returned extra-early, but this week the whole sweaty gang of issuers is back en masse, and making plenty of noise.

Crédit Agricole has hired a former Barclays head of MTNs to head up its MTN business in Europe.

India’s Reliance Industries has launched its long-awaited refinancing of around $2.7bn into general syndication, one month after mandating 17 lead banks to run the transaction.

Japan telecoms company SoftBank took another step towards its flotation this week by replacing its intergroup credit with a double-B rated leveraged loan. This followed a high-yield bond sale in April with the same purpose.

Chinese bond issuers were the first out of the gate on Thursday, vying for investors’ attention after public holidays in many parts of Asia shut markets on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank on Monday fined Crédit Agricole for not obtaining permission to classify instruments as common equity tier one (CET1). GlobalCapital understands this related to ordinary shares issued in an equity raise.

The European Central Bank announced on Monday that it was imposing a €4.8m penalty on Crédit Agricole for not obtaining prior permission for classifying instruments as common equity tier one (CET1) capital. It is the second largest fine it has handed to an entity in relation to its supervisory tasks.

After a two year absence in the Panda bond market, Veolia Environnement made its return last week to raise Rmb1bn ($145.6m). Instead of placing another three year bond, the French corporate issuer cut the tenor to just one year — a move that paid off for the borrower, said bankers.

World Bank scored an average of 7.27 with its first euro benchmark in almost two years, with voters particularly praising the deal in the structure/maturity category.

Each of the first three days of this week saw a jumbo bond deal in the US corporate bond market, but the volume of other deals dwindled as the week progressed, and Thursday struggled to achieve $1bn of issuance.