France

Despite a wide double digit starting spread, My Money Bank’s (MMB) inaugural covered bond was unable to get the necessary traction to build a convincing trade, and, by noon, the deal was only 80% subscribed. The deal was subsequently postponed.

Société Générale has come to the market for the fifth time this month, looking to raise additional tier one capital in dollars. Initial price thoughts were seen as closer to fair value than for other recent AT1s.

UniCredit CIB announced six appointments in its Paris office, with Laurence Fraissinet-Dubois becoming deputy country manager, as well as a senior banker covering major French corporates, and Florent Ciecka made a senior relationship manager.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa was limited to raising €500m of senior funding on Thursday, in its first deal of the year.

French certification agency Bureau Veritas had its credentials stamped by investors on Thursday when it sold its third deal in three years. The unrated issuer received €1bn of demand for its €500m long six year deal.

Unédic drew large demand for its first 10 year euro benchmark of the year on Wednesday, allowing the issuer to considerably tighten its spread through pricing.

The chair of the influential UK Treasury select committee, Nicky Morgan, told a conference of derivatives bankers, lawyers and regulators, that despite the threat of “serious problems” for cross-border derivatives contracts in a Brexit no-deal scenario, she was “reasonably confident that a no deal scenario will not cause the whole sector to fall over”.

La Banque Postale (LBP) won plaudits from rival bankers for its comfortably oversubscribed €750m covered bond which was priced with a modest new issue concession, despite the challenging 10 year tenor, competition with other agency supply and, most importantly, a much reduced order from the Eurosystem.

French electricity utility EDF sold the first hybrid corporate bond deal in the euro market for more than two months on Tuesday, as it launched a tender offer for its existing hybrids with the aim of maintaining its existing volume of outstanding bonds.

Unédic will bring a 10 year euro benchmark on Wednesday that SSA bankers are confident will avoid the fate of some of last week’s deals at that point of the curve.

Bain Capital is preparing to test whether sentiment towards French IPOs has improved post-summer, by floating Consolis, the concrete producer, on Euronext Paris.

Eutelsat, the French satellite operator, would have been hoping for similar conditions to the previous week when it announced an investor call ahead of its first corporate bond deal in more than two years. The atmosphere had changed however by the time the deal was marketed on Tuesday.