France

Crédit Agricole CIB has appointed Pierre-Francois Martineau as a managing director in the bank’s new leveraged and telecom finance group (LTFG) in Paris.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) unearthed strong demand for the first negative yielding non-German covered bond of the year, and the first with a long tenor.

Issuance is starting to resume after the summer break; however, this week a booming public market drew away investor and issuer attention from MTNs. Despite this, a range of established SSA, FIG and corporate borrowers have slipped in, with deals across core, niche and EM currencies.

Rating: Aa3/AA-/AA-

Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) got a warm reception from the investors on Wednesday, when it sold €550m of senior unsecured notes after a 20bp tightening from initial price thoughts.

BBVA was marketing an additional tier one bond on Wednesday, making use of the favourable conditions that other issuers have found for similar instruments in the dollar market, while BNP Paribas, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bawag kept euro investors busy.

HSBC France and Svenska Handelsbanken avoided issuing senior bonds at negative yields in a busy new issue market on Tuesday, but bankers said it was only a 'matter of time' before someone takes the plunge below 0% with an unsecured deal.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made in their funding programmes as we reach the end of August.

Equity capital markets investors are becoming increasingly focused on sustainable investments, particularly those linked to renewable energy. The strength of this demand could be tested this autumn, should Spanish renewable energy firm Zero-E choose to list.

The IPOs of private equity-owned French glassware maker Verallia and of state-owned Française des Jeux (FDJ), the national lottery operator and sports betting company, are both attracting healthy interest in pre-marketing, but sources have expressed some concern that one deal could be taken off the table.

SNCF Réseau steamed ahead with a new century bond issue this week, its second and largest deal to date, amid declining rates that has seen more and more investors take a risk at the ultra-long end in return for yield pick-up.

The World Bank placed its first Hong Kong dollar deal of its 2019/2020 funding year last week. The supranational chose to link the private placement to the Hibor benchmark, a now little seen structure that was likely the result of a "very specific enquiry", according to one MTN banker away from the deal.