France

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.

It is often suggested that issuers have to pay up for issuing sub-benchmark sized deals. However, this week two corporate issuers printed successful €300m transactions with little discernible premium compared to benchmark transactions.

Foncière des Régions printed the only new corporate bond issue on Tuesday. The €500m 10 year deal got a similar reception to TenneT’s dual tranche deal the day before. The level of oversubscription was lower than other deals in recent weeks, but the order book was good quality.

BNP Paribas and Société Générale sold a chunk of their holding in Euronext, the European stock exchange operator, through an accelerated bookbuild on Tuesday night.

La Banque Postale (LBP) attracted strong demand for its 10 year covered bond issued on Wednesday and priced the deal flat to where compatriot Crédit Agricole’s 10 year was trading in the secondary market.

HSBC has hired Rob Ritchie as co-head of global banking, UK.

The IPO of ALD, the car leasing division of Société Générale, is covered at its maximum size including the greenshoe, ahead of the end of the bookbuild on Thursday.

Although sentiment around the euro corporate bond market is favourable, following Emmanuel Macron’s party’s decisive results in French parliamentary elections on Sunday, only one new issue and one tap hit investors’ screens on Tuesday.