Europe

B&S Group, the Dutch consumer goods distribution specialist, has opened the books for its listing on the Amsterdam stock exchange, the second Dutch company to set a price range for its IPO this week.

EU finance ministers failed on Tuesday morning to reach an agreement on the so-called 'banking package', a set of rules aiming at updating and fine-tuning European banking regulation.

Solidium, the Finnish national wealth fund, attracted a large book of over 120 investors when it sold €467m of shares in Sampo, the Helsinki-based financial services group, in a block trade on Tuesday night.

Bankers and investors said that a new deal from Paprec Group, the French waste recycler, showed that the supply of refinancing deals still had legs and could boost overall issuance volumes in the high yield market. Paprec's deal was also green, but did anyone care?

Spanish telecoms company Telefonica has announced the sale of its latest hybrid new issues while also tendering for several of its outstanding hybrids. After over a month since the last benchmark euro hybrid issue, investors contributed to a large order book.

The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) is forecasting £102.9bn ($143.4bn) of Gilt issuance in 2018/19, a fall of £12.2bn from this financial year, which ends on March 31. But the share of funding to be syndicated is steady — despite some investors over the last few months calling for a reduction in the volume of syndications.

CaixaBank issued additional tier one (AT1) notes on Tuesday, following on from Santander’s deal the day before. Both banks offered a generous premium as investors push back against historically tight spreads.

After a reasonable wait, investors are starting to see the more frequent investment grade corporate bond issuers return to the market. On Tuesday, French materials company Saint-Gobain and French telecoms operator Orange sold benchmark deals and UK media company WPP sold a dual-tranche issue.

DNB Bank ASA issued €600m of tier two debt on Tuesday, beating Svenska Handelsbanken’s record set last month as the tightest 10 year non-call five tier two issued since the financial crisis.

Iceland's Arion Bank was looking to add another year onto its senior unsecured bond curve on Tuesday, a week before its comeback euro deal was set to mature.

Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) has returned to the Pfandbrief market for the second time this year to issue a dual tranche offering, with the shorter five year part pricing 3bp wider than a six year launched a few weeks ago.

Elkem, the Norwegian silicon producer and supplier being floated by ChemChina, has had a good start to bookbuilding after launching its Nkr7.7bn (€805m) flotation on the Oslo Børs on Monday.