France

This week's funding scorecard looks at the process French agencies have made in their funding so far in 2018.

Senior executives of the International Finance Corp and Amundi will gather in Paris on Friday afternoon for the official signing of Amundi Planet — Emerging Green One: the innovative fund the organisations set up to invest in green bonds issued by emerging market banks. The fund is already closed and listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Rating: —/AA/AA

Guarantors: Kingdom of Belgium (51%), Republic of France (46%) and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (3%)

The sterling SSA market snapped back into life with a flurry of new deals after a quiet few weeks — although bankers lamented that the issuance door may have closed just as quickly as it opened.

The widening of the dollar Libor/Overnight Indexed Swap (OIS) spread may be one of the biggest talking points in bond markets but it is wrenching open funding opportunities for public sector borrowers. The accompanying widening in dollar swap spreads led two issuers to break new issue records, writes Craig McGlashan.

Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, this week priced the largest European corporate bond deal of 2018 — an €8bn six-tranche deal. The company used only European banks as global co-ordinators for the sale, as the euro market proved that it is a viable market for jumbo financings.

A clean-up trade in shares of Veolia Environnement, the French environmental services company, by Qatari Diar, an arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, failed to clear on Monday night, leaving Société Générale long the stock.

Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, priced on Wednesday the largest corporate bond deal so far in 2018, an €8bn six-tranche deal. The company regularly uses a multi-tranche approach to the market, but this was its largest deal so far in any currency.

Public sector borrowers found buckets of dollar demand on Tuesday, as a French agency sold its largest ever benchmark in the currency and a supranational printed a trade at the upper end of its historical size range. Another supra is lined up to test whether that demand will hold on Wednesday.

Bankers and investors said that a new deal from Paprec Group, the French waste recycler, showed that the supply of refinancing deals still had legs and could boost overall issuance volumes in the high yield market. Paprec's deal was also green, but did anyone care?

After a reasonable wait, investors are starting to see the more frequent investment grade corporate bond issuers return to the market. On Tuesday, French materials company Saint-Gobain and French telecoms operator Orange sold benchmark deals and UK media company WPP sold a dual-tranche issue.