France

France may be top of the world in football but the country’s equity capital market is starting to look a bit second division.

A public sector borrower that plans to debut in the bond markets this year has taken the novel step of making its Euro Medium Term Note programme green.

The IPO of Navya, the French maker of driverless cars and other vehicles, was priced at €7 on Monday, below the initial €9 to €12 range, after the company extended the original bookbuilding period last week.

Natixis will soon embark on an experiment that may be the first of its kind — introducing a green weighting factor to its internal economic capital model, to tilt incentives for its bankers in favour of green loans and away from ‘brown’ ones.

Despite a tricky execution window, Shandong Ruyi, the Chinese textiles conglomerate, has completed the first sale of stock in French fashion house SMCP since its IPO on Euronext Paris last year, alongside the sale of a €50m exchangeable bond.

BPCE was active in the Samurai market this week, selling ¥119.5bn ($1.08bn) of notes, the vast majority of which were in the senior non-preferred format and will be used to finance eligible social loans. The French bank is also drafting a new framework for green bonds and two types of social bond.

A slew of deals hit screens in sterling this week, allowing SSA borrowers from three continents to pick up a combined £1.175bn ($1.55bn) in funding — including one borrower’s largest-ever deal in the currency.

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Barclays has returned to the Swiss franc bond market after an eight year absence.

French markets regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers, has expressed concerns over the supervision of UK clearing houses after Brexit, suggesting that UK home country supervisors may not focus on the stability of the European Union.

Two corporate bond issuers from opposite ends of the ratings spectrum found similar success with new bonds on Wednesday. The seven and eight year tenors found favour with investors looking to put new cash inflows to work.

Beverage company Rémy Cointreau has signed a €100m syndicated loan, with a pricing structure that could see the margin on the debt plunge by more than 70% if certain conditions are met.