Europe

Aramis, the French company that specialises in online car sales, has launched an IPO on the Paris stock exchange. The deal already has some interest from investors, but sources say the IPO market is getting increasingly hard, with investors taking longer to put in orders and heavily scrutinising deals.

Helaba came close to fair value with the pricing for its green and non-preferred senior debut on Wednesday, maintaining a solid order book despite competing supply in euros.

Piraeus Bank is monitoring market conditions for an additional tier one (AT1), which would be the first deal of its kind out of Greece. The issuer no longer requires as much debt capital following a share capital increase late last month. It had thought it would need as much as €600m in AT1 format.

Finnish financial services group Sampo has offloaded €1.37bn of shares in Nordea, the largest bank in the Nordic region, as part of its planned exit from the group.

Following the international outcry over the forced landing of a Ryanair passenger plane carrying a Belarusian dissident, some emerging markets investors are said to have had sudden doubts about the ESG characteristics of Belarusian sovereign bonds. What took them so long?

Hedge funds have taken a lot of heat for their role in inflating order books and flexing spreads, only to flip out and take profits at the first opportunity. But despite the awkward and at times antagonistic presence of such funds, issuers are coming to learn that they are probably better off having them in the order book than not.

Belgian supermarket chain Louis Delhaize launched a Schuldschein on Tuesday afternoon, according to market sources, joining a band of retailers tapping the market this year.

Three public sector issuers hit the market with euro deals on Tuesday, but each opted to raise €500m or less. Their success could embolden Land NRW to return with its deal, but the market has yet to be tested by an issuer of its class.

Sinch, the Swedish cloud-based communications services company, has raised Skr9.4bn (€926m) to fund M&A opportunities following an overnight share sale anchored by major investors.

BPCE re-established confidence in the primary covered bond market with a successful €1.5bn nine year green transaction on Tuesday, opening the way for other issuers planning deals.

Deutsche Bank is shifting about 100 banking jobs in its corporate banking division out of the UK to locations in Europe and Asia as part of a restructuring.

The EU has agreed to hit Belarus with sanctions and restrictions in the aftermath of the grounding of a Ryanair flight and the arrest of one of its passengers, journalist and activist Roman Protasevich. Market participants say that market access for the sovereign is in doubt.