Crédit Agricole

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.

British Telecommunications and Coentreprise de Transport d’Electricité launched triple tranche bond deals on Tuesday, with demand skewed towards the longer tranches.

Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), the Paris transport authority, printed its inaugural green bond on Thursday, selling a €500m no-grow into a thrice oversubscribed book and pulling the price in 5bp from guidance.

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane was the only issuer in the corporate bond market on Thursday. The Italian railway operator's eight year €1bn deal followed a European roadshow last week and took a similar path to other deals this week.

Kepler Cheuvreux has welcomed Swedbank into its European ECM fold as it continues to face off against global investment banks. It has created a model that is tough for others to replicate, writes David Rothnie.