France

Deutsche Bank is in the market this evening with a block trade of about €319m in shares of Euler Hermes, the Paris-listed trade receivables credit insurer. It is the first equity capital markets deal in the stock since 2002.

BNP Paribas paid a slim premium to price the first 12 year senior bond of 2016 from a European bank in euros, as issuers encounter a more favourable environment for adding longer dated debt.

Deutsche Bank has hired Thomas Piquemal, the former senior vice-president for finance at EDF Group, as its global head of M&A and chairman of the corporate and investment bank (CIB) in France.

Maisons du Monde, the French furniture retailer, launched its IPO bookbuild on Monday, with UK, Dutch and South African companies as the main comparable stocks. On Thursday, the leads said the deal was covered.

The French government is expected to unveil a draft amendment to its covered bond laws, aligning the Société de Crédit Foncier (SCF) and Société de Financement de l’Habitat (SFH) frameworks, which should mainly benefit Axa Bank.

This week's scorecard examines how a selection of French agencies are progressing through their 2016 funding programmes.

ASIT Biotech, a Belgian company developing remedies for allergies including hay fever, priced its IPO on Wednesday, raising €23.5m, and made its debut on Euronext Paris and Brussels on Thursday.

Rating: Aa2/AA

Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, the Belgian investment holding company, won a bigger than expected take-up for its buyback of bonds exchangeable into shares of Engie this week.

Water management provider Suez Environnement on Thursday launched the only deal of the day, a €500m note that printed with a small new issue premium.

Singapore’s army of private bank accounts were spoilt for choice this week with a triple-whammy of bank capital transactions that suited them perfectly — an additional tier one from United Overseas Bank and tier two offerings from Société Générale and National Australia Bank.

Agence France Locale printed its second ever syndication on Wednesday, building an oversubscribed book for a seven year deal.