Europe

The next chapter of the renminbi internationalisation process could soon be taking place in the commodities market with Amundi Asset Management predicting the rise of petro-renminbi in 2017.

Foncière des Murs, the French property company controlled by Foncière des Régions, will raise €200m of equity in a rights issue to partly finance its €542m acquisition of a portfolio of 19 Spanish hotels from Merlin Properties.

If Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) is able to wrangle a recapitalisation that looks more like a bail-out than a bail-in, it will set a precedent for Europe's other weakest banks.

The plans of London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse to pursue a merger of equals received a boost this week, as rival exchange Euronext agreed terms with the LSEG to buy its Paris clearing house business LCH SA in an all cash offer.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten (BNG) launched the first SSA benchmark of 2017 on Tuesday. While the agency raised €1bn, its success was muted in comparison with the way it opened 2016.

With yields set to rise and spreads likely to widen, covered bond issuers should waste no time in getting ahead on 2017’s funding plans and doing the more difficult trades first.

Renault Credit International Banque, the finance subsidiary of Renault, became the first corporate bond issuer of 2017 on Tuesday, slipping through the year’s earliest possible window to issue in euros.

German kitchen furniture maker Alno AG started the year with improving earnings data and a big new investor, private equity firm Tahoe, but analysts and bondholders remain unconvinced by the credit.

It was a record breaking year for investment grade corporate bond issuance in 2016, both in overall volumes and individual deal sizes. Not only was a diverse base of issuers able to access the euro market, many were also able to do so in size and at attractive prices, in large part due to the ECB and its accommodative policies, with investors comfortable buying multi-tranche jumbo deals from both domestic and US borrowers.

Loan facilities backing Mid Europa Partners’ acquisition of Romanian retail chain Profi Rom Food will go into general syndication this month, with a fifth bank joining the bookrunners and tranche prices having been indicated to ‘early bird’ lenders.

KommuneKredit and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will reopen the dollar market for SSA borrowers on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the EIB is lining up to perform the same service in sterling bonds.

Syndication of Elysium Healthcare’s reduced £133m loan has run over into 2017 at investors’ requests, according to a banker on the deal, as the European leveraged loan market returns with expectations of a healthy New Year pipeline.