France

The euro public sector bond market bounced back in fine fashion this week after a shock result in the German federal election, leading to some well oversubscribed trades. A potential Catalonian independence referendum is also not affecting demand, said bankers.

A glut of short end dollar issuance this week is set to ramp up on Thursday, after a pair of rare names in the currency mandated on Wednesday. The trades will follow a strong showing from Finnvera after the Finnish agency — also an uncommon name in dollars — printed its largest ever trade in the currency.

Both investment grade corporate bond new issues on Wednesday came from French issuers. Surprisingly, Total issued its first euro bond of 2017, while PSA Banque France sold its second.

Bpifrance Financement has tapped a November 2024 line for €700m, outstripping the size of the original issue and selling into what a banker at one of the leads described as an “amazingly strong market”.

Genuine Parts Company (GPC) will issue $2bn of bonds and loans and ramp up the size of an existing revolver to fund its purchase of France’s Alliance Automotive Group (AAG) when it buys the auto parts wholesaler from private equity towards the end of this year.

Credit Mutuel Arkéa (CM-Arkéa) this week issued the tightest French 10 year covered bond in euros this year with a deal that gave funding that was cheaper than anything it had previously issued.

Artemis, the Pinault family holding company that owns €17bn of shares in Kering, the French luxury goods group, raised €383m on Tuesday with an innovative equity-neutral exchangeable bond, in which Crédit Agricole acts as an extra counterparty to investors.

Canadian car parts maker Magna International and French property company Gecina both priced 10 year deals in the European corporate bond market this week. Magna had waited two years since its last euro issue, Gecina just three months.

Three sub-investment grade borrowers printed deals in the high yield corporate bond market on Thursday using different tenors to raise a combined €1.06bn.

Engie, the French energy group, priced its second green bond transaction of 2017 on Tuesday. The triple trancher contained two green clips and took the issuer’s tally to six different green bonds. As issuers start to establish genuine green curves, they are starting to create their own sector, writes Nigel Owen.

Crédit Agricole issued a six and a half year Swiss franc bond on Thursday, opting for senior preferred in a bid to diversify towards Swiss investors.

On Tuesday, Gecina, the French property company, printed a successful €700m long 10 year bond, having sold €1.5bn of bonds as recently as the end of June to help fund its acquisition of Eurosic.