France

Lloyds Bank has arranged for Unibail-Rodamco, the French-Dutch property company, what it believes is the first syndicated loan that gives the borrower cheaper funding if it hits environmental targets.

Three more IPOs reached successful conclusions on Tuesday and Wednesday, including the largest in Poland for over two years.

Fears of Marine Le Pen winning this year’s French presidential election may have receded but investors should be hoping that her loss will be to frontrunner Emmanuel Macron — and not to former favourite François Fillon.

Euronext spurned the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) on Monday by completing a preliminary agreement with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Clear Netherlands that will provide the European exchange's clearing services in commodity and financial derivatives for the next 10 years.

Renault’s financing arm RCI Banque, rated Baa1/BBB, had the primary market to itself for a dual tranche trade on Monday — a stark contrast to the more than €4bn of trades pushed through this time last week.

The brace of deals printed last week proved evenly matched under the scrutiny of the GC BondMarker voters.

Electricité de France’s €4.018bn three-for-10 rights issue has been oversubscribed, despite the continuing alarming flow of headlines about the nuclear power industry, and the approach of a French presidential election that could bring the far right to power.

French industrial equipment lessor Loxam launched the financing backing its acquisition of Lavendon on Wednesday, an €850m three tranche high yield offering.

French cable manufacturer Nexans launched a €200m bond on Wednesday, bringing back the bookrunners on a bond sale it had to cancel two years ago — but this time, the market was ‘diametrically different’, said bankers.

Investors looking for new public sector avenues in which to deploy their cash can now turn to Moody’s to provide ratings for otherwise unrated public sector borrowers in the UK, France and Germany.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made in their funding progress so far this year.

Two French borrowers and one from the Netherlands pulled off successful deals this week, proving that the market is still open for borrowers at the right price, but both investors and issuers remain nervy.