Crédit Agricole

The euro market was all but deserted this week, but one borrower broke the silence, hitting screens for a socially responsible investment bond on Tuesday.

French engineering consultancy Altran has set the term on its €750m rights issue to finance its acquisition of US global design and engineering company Aricent.

French food company Danone received a strong response on Monday when it sold its inaugural social bond, the first from a corporate issuer since the social bond principles were set out by the International Capital Market Association in June 2017.

Credit Suisse has appointed a second head of China investment banking and capital markets (IBCM), according to a memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia on Thursday.

Despite bagging Rmb4bn ($633.2m) from the Chinese asset-backed securities market on Tuesday, GAC-Sofinco Auto Finance failed to attract offshore interest and priced the deal wider than it did in its last transaction. But these upsets have not affected the carmaker’s appetite for more onshore deals.

The power of equity capital markets to solve complex corporate finance problems elegantly was vividly demonstrated on Tuesday night when JP Morgan and Crédit Agricole led a €2bn sale of Vivendi’s whole 27% stake in Ubisoft, the video game developer, writes Sam Kerr.

Hong Kong-listed New World Development has converted a loan signed in March 2016 into a green loan, a first of its kind for the company and in line with its plan to promote sustainability across its business.

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.