Crédit Agricole

Senior banker Chris Marschall has joined Crédit Agricole as its new equity capital markets head for Asia Pacific, as the French bank starts building an ECM business in the region.

The Council of Europe Development Bank returned to the market for socially responsible investments on Tuesday, printing a seven year “social inclusion” bond.

The Council of Europe Development Bank’s long awaited social inclusion bond will come to market on Tuesday, following a two week roadshow.

Two new SRI corporate bonds were priced on Monday, but with very different results. Iberdrola’s green hybrid bond failed to tighten from initial price thoughts, while Danone’s debut social bond had to pay just 2bp of premium.

Analysts expect the iTraxx Europe indices will widen when IHS Markit issues series 29 this week, as the indices will for the first time reference French non-preferred senior bonds in place of ordinary senior unsecured obligations.

China’s Qinghai Provincial Investment Group Co was forced to pay up around 75bp in new issue premium to complete a $250m bond on Friday, as investors voiced their scepticism about the low rated issuer.

Senior executives of the International Finance Corp and Amundi will gather in Paris on Friday afternoon for the official signing of Amundi Planet — Emerging Green One: the innovative fund the organisations set up to invest in green bonds issued by emerging market banks. The fund is already closed and listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, this week priced the largest European corporate bond deal of 2018 — an €8bn six-tranche deal. The company used only European banks as global co-ordinators for the sale, as the euro market proved that it is a viable market for jumbo financings.

Tullow Oil, the group based in London that has most of its operations in Africa, was on course to print its new high yield bond in the 7% area this week. It was attracting interest from pension funds in need of assets with high returns, according to sources.

GAC-Sofinco Auto Finance is preparing to sell a Rmb4bn ($633m) deal in the Chinese asset-backed securities market on March 20, set to be the third foreign name origination in three weeks.

Bankers and investors said that a new deal from Paprec Group, the French waste recycler, showed that the supply of refinancing deals still had legs and could boost overall issuance volumes in the high yield market. Paprec's deal was also green, but did anyone care?

French car manufacturer Peugeot has been on a ratings rollercoaster in the last 10 years. On Friday, now back to the highest sub-investment grade ratings, the company sold its third seven year deal in three years.