Crédit Agricole

A bevvy of public sector borrowers are lining up euro deals for Tuesday and beyond — but some are opting to hold back price thoughts amid a cluttered and volatile backdrop.

B&B Hotels, France’s third largest budget hotels group, launched a covenant-lite senior term loan to early birds this week, backing its €800m buyout by PAI Partners from the Carlyle Group and Montefiore Investment.

As news of the UK and US investigation into SSA market trading practices broke, the SSA market split over whether the banks at the heart of the probe would lose primary business.

In the wake of the news that four traders at different banks were under investigation by US and UK authorities over possible sharing of client flow information, senior bankers were quick to blame the structures of the market, and pressure from issuers focused on turnover statistics, for making it possible.

Just as European equity capital sales made a prompt start to the year on Tuesday, the first viable window available, with the €1bn NN Group block trade, the equity-linked market also wasted no time. Safran, the French aerospace and defence company, issued a €650m convertible at what a banker claimed was a record low yield.

Borrowers who issued covered bonds this week that are eligible for the European Central Bank’s purchase programme (CBPP3) did not receive such a strong reception as those whose bonds were not eligible.

Investigators are finally baring their teeth at the bond markets, after dozens of other post-crisis scandals, with a probe into the supranational and agency market that has engulfed four banks.

Eleven covered bonds were priced in the first week of 2016 despite the onset of European holidays and US non-farm payroll data.

Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has completed a Sr7.75bn ($2bn) package of loans by signing a $1.4bn three year revolving credit facility in London this week.

Wednesday brought red back to equity traders' screens after a buoyant Tuesday, but trading action confirmed the satisfactory execution of this year’s first two substantial equity capital markets deals in Europe: the €1.03bn block trade in NN Group, the Dutch insurer, and French aerospace firm Safran’s €650m convertible.

Investment grade loan pricing has stopped falling — meaning the flow of refinancing deals is ebbing. Mergers and acquisitions, as ever, are what banks want, and they are confident of getting more in 2016. But will banks finally get round to weeding out unprofitable relationships? Rob Cooke reports.

LGC Group, the UK life sciences company, will hold a bank meeting on January 13 for £500m of debt to finance its sale by Bridgepoint to KKR.