France

More banks are expected to bring dual tranche trades in the coming days to get a jump start on 2016 funding, with issuers distrustful of primary market conditions.

BNP Paribas’s corporate and institutional bank shone in 2015, with revenues up 13.2% compared with the previous year. And while some have criticised the bank for letting its strategy rely too much on competitor retrenchment, BNPP's head of CIB Yann Gérardin said it was already well into its strategic transformation.

Supranational and agency borrowers showed their steel once again this week, printing a series of euro deals in the face of strong volatility.

Natixis defied the grim tone of the markets in the fourth quarter of 2015 as its capital markets business reported an increase in revenues. The bank argues its results vindicate its progress towards an asset-light model, as the investment solutions business bumped up revenues.

Soitec is seeking to raise €130m-€180m through two successive capital increases, it said on Wednesday.

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.