France

French aerospace and defence company Thales took a proven route to success when it sold a new dual tranche deal on Thursday, combining short dated floating rate notes with a fixed rate offering.

The investment grade corporate euro bond market had shown a steady return to strength after Easter, but Thursday's five-deal spree tested its resolve . The market last saw that many deals on March 15 – a day described by one syndicate banker as a repricing point.

Vehicle makers and their finance arms continued their recent dominance of Europe’s investment grade corporate bond market. Renault, Volkswagen-owned Scania and Peugeot’s joint venture with Santander, PSA Banque, all priced deals on the same day this week, after three issues from their German peers in the previous seven days.

The head of covered bond origination at Société Générale is expected to leave the bank this week and is also relinquishing his role as deputy chairman of the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC).

Lazard has hired a senior banker from Deutsche Bank to lead its French equity capital markets advisory business.

The two borrowers that closed out the first quarter with benchmarks have now been examined by the BondMarker voters.

Société Générale picked its spot for a new additional tier one (AT1) bond this week, as bank jostle for position in a market that is increasingly being characterised by 'good' and 'bad' windows for issuance.

Covered bonds issued this week by Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF), ABN Amro and ING Bank offered premiums well in excess of any other seen this year. The three deals repriced the secondary market and set a pattern that is likely to become more established over time.

France tapped its Green OAT on Thursday for the third time, raising €1.096bn.

FIG bankers said that Société Générale had started with ‘aggressive’ price thoughts for a new dollar-denominated additional tier one deal on Wednesday, as the French bank looked to raise capital ahead of an upcoming call date.

Despite a turbulent market backdrop on Tuesday, Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) took advantage of the fresh money that is usually put to work at the start of each quarter to issue a defensive €1.5bn covered bond with a ‘very generous’ starting spread.

Caisse Française de Financement Local (Caffil) plans to issue its first social covered bond this year and, along with La Banque Postable (LBP), it is considering a debut green deal in 2019. Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) has green assets to fund but is biding its time. These issuers and other key market participants spoke of their sustainable finance plans in the Crédit Agricole CIB covered bond roundtable.