France

A pair of public sector borrowers are bringing short end dollar benchmarks as ever widening swap spreads support trades at that part of the curve.

Three French banks were among six financial institutions selling unsecured bonds in the euro market on Monday morning, with BNP Paribas, BPCE and HSBC France raising €3.5bn between them.

French car manufacturer Peugeot has been on a ratings rollercoaster in the last 10 years. On Friday, now back to the highest sub-investment grade ratings, the company sold its third seven year deal in three years.

Gas supplier Air Liquide raised Rmb2.2bn ($347m) from its first Panda bond on March 6, becoming the first European issuer sell a bond with a maturity of longer than three years in the asset class.

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.