France

Sanofi entered the European corporate bond market for the second time in a year on Tuesday, using its favoured triple tranche format and printing short dated notes with a negative yield.

The covered bond market was in good shape on Tuesday but it was in good shape this time last year too. With core covered bond valuations still out of sync with other asset classes, bankers warn that the market has become complacent and another correction is due.

Investors’ concerns about the performance of the shipping industry have hit bonds of the French group CMA CGM in an otherwise stable high yield secondary market.

Two European real estate investment companies have wrapped up loans in the last week, though borrowing by the sector is lagging behind bumper 2015 volumes.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) enjoyed a strong reception for its fourth covered bond of the year, the seventh 10 year issue in little over two weeks. Despite the surfeit of 10 year supply and meagre spread to OATs, the transaction was smoothly executed.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier has mandated leads for the first French covered bond since mid-June, the bank’s fourth this year and the sixth 10 year in two weeks.

Veolia Environnement etched its name into the record books this week by becoming the first French company and only the second European corporate to issue a Panda bond.

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

BNP Paribas and HSBC followed Barclays into the sterling market on Monday, revealing opportunities in the currency following last week’s Bank of England meeting as spreads grind tighter and book sizes grow.

Petit Forestier, the French refrigerated vehicle leasing firm, closed syndication of its €525m acquisition loan earlier this week with oversubscribed commitments from lenders.

In the 1983 blockbuster movie TV meteorologist Phil Connors gets caught in a time loop. With new issue premiums set to rise and spreads prone to soften, the covered bond market could also be set for a repeat of last year, say bank traders, and analysts at Crédit Agricole.

France's Danone has completed syndication of $13.1bn of loans to fund the $12.5bn acquisition of North American organic food and drinks company White Wave. But there might not be many more jumbo deals this year, as political volatility looks set to hang over the M&A market for a little longer, writes Robert Cooke.