France

Credit Foncier de France is out with its second RMBS of the year. CFHL-2 2015 may not come with the special regulatory treatment of the issuer’s covered bonds, but the deal offers a spread that looks particularly alluring for the risk. A major investor of covered bonds and securitizations said RMBS offer far better risk return than covered bonds, and chastised fellow investors for their lazy approach to assessing credit risk.

World Bank joined a swarm of issuers looking to print in the dollar market with a mandate on Tuesday for the first 10 year benchmark in seven weeks.

DomusVi, the French operator of private care homes for the elderly, announced on Tuesday a €125m tap of its subsidiary HomeVi’s only high yield bond, as it is acquiring Geriatros from private equity fund Magnum.

A French agency is the latest SSA issuer preparing to tap a dollar market that is in good health — although not every point on the curve may be open for borrowers wishing to follow this week.

French railway operator SNCF Réseau has more than doubled the length of its outstanding maturity curve with a century long medium term note.

Natixis has appointed Pascal Soldaini to a CEEMEA focused position in its global infrastructure and projects business.

Covered bond issuers have provided more than €7bn of supply this week after a moribund spell, proving themselves to be more nimble and opportunistic than perhaps ever before.

Time is up for the covered bond lemmings. They’ve had it too easy for too long. Gone are the days of pricing a covered bond exactly where your neighbour wished they had printed theirs. Issuers need to be nimble and bankers insightful.

Rating: A2/A/A

Verallia, the French glass bottle maker, started sounding investors on Thursday for an €860m-equivalent bond to finance its acquisition by alternative investment fund Apollo Global Management.

Santander Consumer Finance and Société Générale both opted for defensive three year senior unsecured trades on Thursday, the first euro benchmark FIG deals in three weeks.

Greek parliament gave bankers the result they were hoping for on Wednesday night, providing strong market conditions for two well established eurozone issuers — Commerzbank and BPCE — to issue five year bonds, taking a combined €1bn in the covered bond market. Sizable orderbooks and minimal new issue premiums proved that the market is very much in full operating mode.