France

Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), the Paris transport authority, is coming to market for a 10 year green bond on Thursday.

Orange, the French telecoms company, sold a third of its stake in UK peer BT Group on Monday night through a block trade and used another third to back an exchangeable bond in an attempt to “take a balanced approach when reducing its exposure”, a banker on the deal said.

Coentreprise de Transport d’Electricité made a statement with its inaugural bond issue on Tuesday. The holding company for the French power grid company achieved its aim of raising €2.92bn in three tranches, achieving greater size with the longer bonds.

Arabtec Holding, the United Arab Emirates’ largest listed construction firm, said on Tuesday its rights issue was fully subscribed, raising Dh1.5bn ($408m) for a recapitalisation.

The multi-tranche theme of the week continued on Tuesday. British Telecommunications and Coentreprise de Transport d’Electricité both launched triple tranche bond deals, with the volume skewed towards the longer tranches.

Plastic Omnium, the unrated French car parts maker, on Monday became the first company that had held a European bond roadshow last week to launch a deal.

As temperatures across Europe hit new highs for the year, primary issuance is also hotting up in its corporate bond market. Borrowers led the charge on Monday with three well received deals totalling five tranches.

Crédit Agricole SFH seized an opportunity to issue its fifth covered bond benchmark of the year on Monday and, by pricing flat to its curve, it showed there was little reason to wait for better execution conditions this year.

BNP Paribas will look to place a new non-preferred senior bond among regional investors in Germany this week, as it diversifies its investor base for total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) eligible debt.

European corporate bond markets have quickly shrugged off the uncertainty surrounding the UK election result and central bank meetings, and look set for a busy end to June.

The revival of equity-linked issuance in Europe continued this week with three deals, all of the kind investors are looking for: from smaller companies with higher credit spreads and interesting equity stories.

ALD, the car leasing division of Société Générale, priced its €1.15bn Paris IPO near the bottom of its initial range on Thursday.