France

French property company Gecina started its funding programme for 2018 with a €500m 12 year offering on Wednesday after selling €2.5bn of bonds in 2017.

Eurazeo, the French private equity group, sold its remaining stake in Accor, the restructured hotel company, through a €552m equity block trade on Tuesday night that cleared at one of the year's tightest discounts.

Insurance firm Axa has made a €12.4bn-equivalent cash bid for XL Group, and the French company says it already has €9bn of back-up bridge financing in place.

RCI Banque was one of the first issuers to sell a corporate bond in 2018. It has returned two months later with a dual-tranche offering which took advantage of demand for floating rate notes as well as fixed rate paper.

The total issuance of investment grade corporate bonds in February was an underwhelming €14.8bn but the property sector has outshone all others in 2018 and this week was no different as investors had further diversification to consider.

Six of the nine investment grade corporate new issues in the last week of February were announced with a three letter acronym that, while providing clarity, served to frustrate investors keen to see greater volumes of issuance. WNG stands for “will not grow” and this week told investors that the meagre sized deals would not be increased, irrespective of demand.

Finnish residential property developer Kojamo and French care home operator Orpea added to the geographical diversity of the property company corporate bonds sold this week with a €500m seven year deal, while frequent issuer RCI Banque sold a dual tranche offering

French commercial property company Carmila returned to the investment grade bond market after two years away and received a positive response from investors for its longest maturity to date.

Nexity, the French property developer, increased a convertible bond issue from €180m to €200m on Tuesday after receiving strong demand.

Société Générale has become the third bank to sell a five year non-preferred senior bond in floating rate format this week, but the French bank was unable to replicate the earlier successes of BBVA and Crédit Agricole.

Five new investment grade corporate bond deals were priced on Tuesday and, while pricing was competitive, none of the issuers allowed for any growth in the size of the deals as all five used a no-grow strategy.

Ivanhoé Cambridge, a Canadian property investor, sold a 4.2% stake in the French real estate investment trust Gecina on Monday night through an accelerated bookbuild run by Goldman Sachs.