Europe

The positive tone in the corporate bond market and some excellent recent results for those issuers who have sold new deals has resulted in a number of companies announcing plans for transactions. The buoyant pipeline is a cause of optimism among bankers, despite no deals being marketed on Tuesday.

A very large block trade, relative to the market cap, is taking place tonight in shares of Instone Real Estate, the German residential property developer. The €413m trade covers 49.6% of the capital.

UK legal finance firm Vannin Capital plans to go public in the autumn, having filed an intention to float document in London on Monday.

The deal flow of high yield bonds kept rising in euros and sterling this week. Four new issuers joined the already heavy pipeline, including a euro bond from UK premium car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover.

Ireland has published a framework for Irish Sovereign Green Bonds and will roadshow in the coming weeks for its first green bond issue, which may be used to fund a wide variety of climate change-related and broader environmental spending.

Agence Française de Développement was comfortably oversubscribed and able to pull in pricing by a basis point from guidance with a climate bond issue on Monday.

August was generally a healthy month for many global derivatives exchanges, though performance was not quite consistent across the industry.

Public sector euro benchmark supply is set to restart after a lull last week, with a eurozone sovereign and a French agency hitting screens on Monday for pricing on Tuesday.

Gas asset and infrastructure investment consortium Quadgas made its debut in the sterling corporate bond market on Monday with a £350m 11 year offering. The company had previously raised funds from the US private placement market, but this was its first benchmark public deal.

Swiss flavours and fragrance manufacturer Givaudan is a regular user of the Swiss franc corporate bond market, but sold its first euro deal this week to help refinance the funding of its €1.25bn acquisition of French natural ingredients supplier Naturex.

Sterling leveraged loan volumes are on the rise, even as sterling high yield bond volumes have been heavily curtailed, said Marlborough Partners this week.

The UK’s RPC Group is in talks with two private equity firms for a potential sale, with the plastics packaging company’s pre-acquisition leverage well below covenant breaching levels.