France

Strong short end dollar demand led a host of issuers to print tight deals this week, including one debut. Investor appetite is expected to stay strong, but bankers are sceptical that there will be much supply.

Since the market returned from its summer break, no corporate bond issuer had printed a new deal with a tenor longer than 12 years before Wednesday. However, on Wednesday French water and waste company Suez Environnement pushed through to 15 years with a €500m trade.

On Thursday RCI Banque, the financing arm of Renault, brought the corporate bond deal count to 10 for the week, but was the only benchmark issuer in the market on the day. Danish logistics company DSV debuted in euros with a sub-benchmark deal.

UK telecoms group Virgin Media was in the market for a £200m add-on of its 2024 receivable financing notes on Monday. By Wednesday, it had sold £450m of the deal, proving that demand is not restricted to the high yield debt market for euros, where three more deals were under way.

Tobam has hired Frédéric Jamet as head of trading and co-head of research. Mr Jamet will oversee equities, fixed income, forex and assets. He will be based in Paris but will manage teams on the continent and in Dublin.

Tobam, the Paris-based asset manager, has appointed Frédéric Jamet as head of trading and co-head of research. He had been an investment adviser at State Street for 11 years.

Since the market returned from its summer break, no corporate bond issuer had printed a new deal with a tenor longer than 12 years. However, that changed on Wednesday when French water and waste company, Suez Environnement pushed through to 15 years with a €500m trade.

Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit have sold their stakes in Eramet, the French mining and metallurgy company, which they had acquired as a result of the debt restructuring of the Carlo Tassara vehicle in 2016.

Synlab, the French clinical services provider, achieved tight pricing on Tuesday for its leveraged loan. That bodes well for a September deal pipeline that has swelled to over €5bn. But bankers cautioned small deals may still have to fight for investor attention against large offerings like Stada’s €2bn loan.

On Monday, Japanese brewer Asahi Group brought the fourth European bond issue by a beer producer in Europe in 2017. The €1.2bn dual tranche offering was the largest of four new issues in the euro corporate bond market, all of which were rated triple-B and paid double digit new issue premiums.

Boutique trading firm Liquidity Finance has hired Michael Wheeler and Matthew Robbins, both formerly of BNP Paribas, to start a high yield bond trading operation in London.

A full €2.3bn of bond offerings from seven borrowers hit screens on Monday in the European high yield bond market, following last week's more than €3bn of new bonds despite fund inflows turning negative.