Europe

Stora Enso, the pulp and paper company based in Finland, has successfully refinanced a €700m loan with a €600m revolving credit facility.

Iceland was awash with orders on Wednesday for its first deal since 2014, which came alongside a tender offer for the sovereign’s July 2020 bonds.

Vossloh, the German rail technology company, has signed a €150m revolving credit facility with a club of eight banks to refinance a loan signed in 2015.

Eurex, the Deutsche Boerse-owned derivatives exchange, had technical issues on Wednesday morning, with users unable to start trading products at their normal 8am start.

Italy is planning to return to the dollar market in 2018 for the first time in years and could also make an appearance in yen further down the line.

Covered bond primary volumes are likely to grow steeply in January, as issuers take advantage of a sizeable amount of cash that investors will want to return to the market because of soaring redemptions.

Société Générale has arranged a €142.6m green loan for Brittany Ferries, to finance the company’s first ferry powered by liquefied natural gas.

Investors’ attentions have turned to 2018 in the absence of any new IG corporate bonds this week. And, despite tight spreads and low yields, they expect similar conditions to prevail, albeit providing lower returns given the lower starting point than 2017.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg could opt to bring a green bond if it decides to come to market in 2018, GlobalCapital can reveal.

UniCredit followed up on its capital markets day by announcing the sale of a new additional tier one (AT1) bond on Wednesday.

Policymakers and market participants are divided over a proposal to lower bank capital requirements for green assets, after the European Commission said this week that it was considering new measures to promote sustainable finance.

Belgium will issue its first sovereign green bond in the first quarter of 2018. Several countries in southern Europe are investigating the option, but they are less likely to issue in the near future.