Crédit Agricole

France plans to forge ahead with tapping its debut Green OAT rather than introducing new SRI lines, despite some investors calling for a shorter dated alternative. Craig McGlashan and Lewis McLellan report.

British oil and gas company BP returned to the European corporate bond markets on Thursday for the first time in a year. Two euro tranches came 12 months after the company’s last euro offering, and a sterling tranche was its first in its domestic currency since August 2016.

Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) has sold its first dollar bond of the year, opting for a Formosa transaction in Taiwan.

Crédit Agricole has sold a Samurai bond to retail buyers, marking the first time it has participated in that market. It is in the tier two format, despite European regulators’ concern that non-institutional investors holding bank capital could prevent the effective resolution of institutions.

A green bond and a conventional bond both hit the euro market on Wednesday. While neither aimed for size, the pricing action showed much hotter demand for the green offering.

Spain’s Masmovil has completed a second round of refinancing on its bank loans, shaving a further 100bp off the cost of its total debt pile and ramping up the size to €831m.

The European leveraged loan market is starting to look a lot like it did in May, with a table full of multi-billion deals and bankers concerned about how much this spike in issuance could play into investors’ hands.

France sold its first syndicated tap on Tuesday, adding €4bn to its GrOAT line. The sovereign will be followed in the green market by a Danish agency's sophomore offering.

The UK’s Porterbrook has signed £885m in bank financing from a syndicate of 11 lenders, with Moody’s giving the rolling stock company’s senior debt a Baa2 rating.

Sweden’s SSAB has ramped up the size of its euro denominated revolving credit facility to €600m, as the high strength steelmaker becomes the latest beneficiary of the liquidity flooding the loan markets.

France is set to revisit the SRI market, announcing a syndicated tap of its June 2039 Green OAT, or GrOAT. The deal will follow a German agency's annual green bond.

China National BlueStar (Group) Co, a subsidiary of China National Chemical Corp, has launched a $500m loan into general syndication, three months after its parent sealed a $5.5bn senior secured facility.