Crédit Agricole

New deals marketed this week by US borrowers Owens-Illinois and Federal-Mogul pushed reverse Yankee issuance to 25% of the €22bn of euro high yield issuance so far in 2017.

Albéa, the French packaging firm owned by Sun Capital Partners, has scheduled a bank meeting for Monday in London about a $921m-equivalent bond to loan refinancing and dividend recapitalisation.

SNCF Réseau on Wednesday printed at the upper end of its size expectations with its second ever green bond, while the International Finance Corporation looked at the possibility of printing in the green format over the next three months.

With public sector borrowers having reached advanced stages in their annual funding programmes as the first quarter comes to a close, focus is shifting to socially responsible bonds.

Volkswagen has returned to the public straight bond markets in its own name for the first time since September 2015, when it was swept from the market by its emissions test cheating scandal. Bond markets being what they are, a multi-billion euro blowout is likely.

South Korea’s Shinhan Bank secured a tightly priced $500m deal on Tuesday, taking advantage of an otherwise quiet market as well as the Monday success of Korea National Oil Corp.

The socially responsible bond pipeline ballooned on Tuesday, with a European supranational announcing a roadshow for a debut issue, a French agency mandating for a deal and a Washington supranational pricing a social bond in benchmark size for the first time.

Unédic launched a 10 year benchmark on Tuesday. The deal came in the wake of a televised debate between the French presidential candidates that appeared to restore investors’ confidence in French names, according to an SSA syndicate banker at one of the leads.

Private equity firm Ardian has acquired a majority stake in Prosol Group, the parent company of Grand Frais, the French supermarket company.

Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) took advantage of the positive market on Monday to price three $500m tranches of new notes at an attractive price, while still offering investors some cushion on the fixed rate portions.

Shinhan Bank launched a new five year dollar deal on Tuesday, following its compatriot Korea National Oil Corp into the debt market.

Buoyed by relief following a Dutch election in which Eurosceptic Geert Wilders’ hopes of forming a government were dashed, public sector borrowers are flocking back to capital markets.