France

Bpifrance Financement sold a five year €500m bond on Wednesday as a moderate rise in Bund yields suggested calm after a turbulent open to the week.

BNP Paribas has impressive targets for cutting costs and increasing capital, after outshining some of its major competitors by posting a full year profit. But it needs to tell a compelling story about how it plans to hit them.

BNP Paribas enjoyed a 13.2% rise in corporate and institutional banking (CIB) revenues in 2015 over 2014 — and is outlining plans to gain more market share at the expense of some of its “retreating European peers”.

Worldwide Flight Services, the French cargo and luggage handling company, on Friday sold a €100m tap of its 2021 bond and €140m of triple C rated notes to support its purchase of US peer Consolidated Aviation Services.

Laboratoire Français du Fractionnement et des Biotechnologies (LFB), the French biopharmaceutical company, announced on Tuesday that it had raised a €124m Euro private placement, as the Euro PP market gathers pace, according to bankers.

The exceptionally advantageous terms issuers can get in the convertible market — and the product’s appeal to the bluest of blue chip names — were highlighted again on Thursday when LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods group, raised $600m at a deeply negative yield.

Concerns over the exodus of real money investors from the covered bond market were put to rest this week as a series of deals met exceptionally strong demand, with the sea change in sentiment being most conspicuous in the French sector.

Agence Française de Développement — AFD

Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette Sociale (Cades) priced a £500m three year bond on the same day that KommuneKredit mandated for a tap in the currency.

Labeyrie Fine Foods, the French producer of smoked salmon and foie gras, on Wednesday sold a €80m tap of its 2021 secured notes to finance the acquisition of food producers Pére Olive and King Cuisine from Aqualande.

The arid landscape for equity block trades so far this year in EMEA was brightened on Wednesday by two evening sales, both with a Russian flavour and involving elite clients.

Worldwide Flight Services, the French cargo and luggage handling company, is seeking to raise €240m through a bond tap and new issue, to support its purchase of US peer Consolidated Aviation Services.