France

On Wednesday, the euro corporate bond market reminded any doubters that it was still very much open for business with five tranches totalling €3bn being priced by three well known issuers.

A senior debt capital markets banker at Crédit Agricole CIB has moved to the bank’s sustainable banking team.

Ardian and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice sold their remaining stakes in Spie, the French engineering company, on Monday night via an auctioned block trade that was priced at a tight discount to the close.

Investor support for leveraged loan deals where the issuer is only seeking to cut margins remains so strong that some borrowers, such as French real estate group Foncia, may do it twice this year.

France announced this morning it would tap its green bond, the famous green OAT or GrOAT, on December 7. The deal will come just before President Emmanuel Macron holds a climate summit in Paris.

Green bond specialists are interested to see whether France will issue another green OAT (GrOAT) to coincide with the country's president Emmanuel Macron's One Planet Summit in December.

A trio of equity-linked issues this week was capped off on Thursday by a €100m convertible bond due in April 2023 from Pierre & Vacances, the French operator of tourist villages.

Private equity firm Ardian is ready to tap Europe’s leveraged finance markets to fund the acquisition of a controlling stake in Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques (DRT), the French plant chemistry specialist, but there are mixed views on the outlook for further M&A-fuelled leveraged finance activity.

Maisons du Monde, the French furniture retailer, has issued its first ever convertible bond, raising €200m to refinance a term loan. The deal was eight times oversubscribed and priced at the best end of terms for the issuer.

Discussions between European member states over the supervision of foreign clearing houses have prompted potential changes to European Commission legislation that would strengthen the role of central banks and the ESRB, according to a leaked document seen by GlobalCapital.

The three corporate bond issuers who sold new issues in euros on Tuesday offered something short, something intermediate and something long. The shorter tranches benefitted from the most interest.

French toll road operator Holding d’Infrastructures de Transport paid a hefty premium last Friday as it sold a dual tranche bond to help refinance its March 2018 note. The Baa3 rated subsidiary of Spanish infrastructure company Abertis suffered from the uncertainty surrounding a takeover of its parent company.