France

Compagnie de Financment Foncier (CFF) has mandated leads for a five year covered bond, taking advantage of positive sentiment that has followed French presidential elections.

The Belgian government sold the first chunk of its stake in BNP Paribas for €2bn through a structured trade that began on Wednesday night. The four bookrunners priced the trade aggressively and were left long of some stock, but luck has been with them so far, write Jon Hay and Aidan Gregory. They will be praying their fortune holds and Emmanuel Macron wins the second round of the French presidential election on Sunday.

Société Générale missed consensus for its first quarter earnings on Thursday, following a €963m legal settlement with the Libyan sovereign wealth fund. But the French bank’s results were otherwise robust, with a particularly strong performance in trading fixed income currencies and commodities.

France’s investment bankers will be keen to prove their top level political connections following Emmanuel Macron's election as president, writes David Rothnie.

On Wednesday night, the Belgian state conducted one of the largest equity block trades of the year so far – a 2.5% stake in BNP Paribas.

BNP Paribas reported a big upturn in fixed income revenues in the first quarter of 2017, thanks in part to the terrible quarter that kicked off last year, and to the benign backdrop across almost all markets.

Caffil enjoyed very strong demand for a two tranche covered bond offering on Wednesday and showed just how much the squeezed technical backdrop is forcing investors' hands.

Crédit Agricole issued one of three euro benchmark covered bonds this week, attracting demand that topped the combined interest seen in deals issued by Swedbank and HVB.

Rating: A1/A/A

Crédit Agricole issued the largest covered bond in three months, and despite pricing through OATs, it attracted the biggest order book in more than two years for a deal of this size.

Crédit Agricole attracted close to €4bn of orders for a new 10 year preferred senior bond on Tuesday, riding a tremendous rally in credit spreads following the weekend's well-received election result.

Politicians and regulators might say they want a safer financial system, but they want their banks globally competitive. There’s no better way to ease regulations than to play on these fears — but they’re not always grounded in fact.