Crédit Agricole

Korian, the French group that provides care homes for the elderly, on Wednesday became one of the very few companies to have issued a convertible bond structured to gain equity credit under IFRS.

So far this week, euro corporate bond investors have had to choose between three tranches from an individual issuer. On Wednesday, they had a choice of three issuers, with different ratings and offering different tenors.

Buyers considering Klöckner Pentaplast’s €1.6bn loan and Manutencoop's high yield bonds forced the issuers to sweeten terms this week, in a now rare sight in the leveraged finance market.

Korea Development Bank (KDB) added a dash of variety to Asia’s green market on Tuesday with its inaugural $300m deal, finding support from a combination of dedicated green funds, as well as conventional investors. Typical of issuers from South Korea, the policy bank did not pay any new issue premium for its fundraising.

French lender Crédit Agricole has hired Italo Lombardi from Standard Chartered as its Latin America economist and strategist.

Ghana Cocoa Board held a successful roadshow in London on Friday for its annual cocoa harvest loan financing, according to a banker on the deal.

On Tuesday, Gecina, the French property company, latched onto the latest trend for issuance in the multi-tranche European corporate bond. The triple tranche €1.5bn deal will be used to refinance part of the bridge facility used by Gecina to acquire Eurosic.

EuroChem had taken books of $1.2bn by lunchtime on Tuesday after opening books on a four year trade a week after finishing its roadshow. Falling oil prices and a Russia sovereign trade last week meant the issuer decided to wait for a firmer market before launching its deal.

Korea Development Bank is venturing out to the green financing market, launching a dollar bond at the Asia open on Tuesday.

South Korea's Nonghyup Bank is readying investors for its annual dollar bond.

Calls are growing louder for sovereigns to pull their weight and assume a leading role in the development of the green bond market. But, as was demonstrated at panels in Euromoney’s Global Borrowers & Bond Investors Forum this week, many of them are reluctant to take up the SRI baton, write Lewis McLellan and Sharon Kimathi.

On Wednesday BP became the third UK issuer to sell bonds in euros this week. The €1.5bn dual tranche deal followed oil entering bear market territory on Tuesday.