France

Neil Walker, non-executive director of LCH’s SA and Group boards, is standing down to pursue 'executive commitments' elsewhere.

Multilateral development banks will focus more on providing credit enhancement and support to help small, emerging market borrowers bring their green bonds to market, according to the head of climate change at the European Investment Bank. Meanwhile, a French region visited the green market on Tuesday.

The European Stability Mechanism returned to stellar form this week, hitting the sweet spot for euro demand and exceeding its first quarter funding target. Bpifrance Financement will look to follow up the supranational’s success on Wednesday.

Lansforsakringar Hypotek (LF Hyp) has issued its longest dated covered bond which, with a positive spread to mid-swaps, gives a slight premium to other Swedish banks but no concession to its own curve.

Axa Bank has priced its largest covered bond in almost five years at the tightest spread it has ever achieved and inside fair value. The choice of tenor, timing and final spread were instrumental in the successful outcome.

The European Stability Mechanism has nipped in ahead of a European Central Bank Governing Council meeting later this week to mandate banks for a 10 year euro benchmark. Other euro supply this week could come from Région Île-de-France, which held a global investor call on Monday for a green and sustainability bond.

SoLocal Group, the French marketing services provider, has completed its €400m rights issue, which involved a debt-for-equity swap.

Corporate borrowers are taking advantage of rising political worry among investors by issuing short dated floating rate notes in euros which stand a good chance of bearing negative yields, write Michael Turner, Ross Lancaster and Jon Hay.

Despite the ECB’s backstop bid, covered bond trading is a tough business. Tight spreads may help investors score mark-to-market gains, but discourage them selling since replacement assets are scarce. But the market is evolving, e-trading is on the march and traditional dealer rankings are changing too.

NRW.Bank will be the next SSA borrower to tap the euro market, after two eurozone sovereigns raised a combined €11.4bn through auctions on Thursday, making the most of a week largely free from political volatility.

The European high yield bond market has rebooted after a February in which US firms dominated sales, with so many local issuers now coming forward that high yield bankers have started worrying that March could be overcrowded if the entire deal pipeline materialises.

Air Liquide successfully traversed souring investor appetite towards French risk on Wednesday to print a €600m 10-year trade amid a fresh furor in the run up to the country’s presidential elections.