France

Agence Française de Développement is looking to expand its thematic bond framework to include the issuance of social-labelled debt.

Société du Grand Paris impressed the SSA market on Tuesday with a series of superlatives. It sold its biggest ever bond with the longest ever maturity for a syndicated green bond in any asset class. The City of Munich hit another landmark with the first social bond from a European city.

Two European borrowers hit screens on Monday morning at the short end of the euro curve, with a third set to follow suit on Tuesday as issuers. Both of Monday’s deals received extraordinarily strong demand.

Société du Grand Paris and the City of Munich will break new ground in the socially responsible bond market this week as the pipeline for green and social debt from public sector borrowers builds.

Five SSA issuers brought dollar deals to market this week, hitting screens in a variety of formats and tenors. With investors undeterred by volatile government bond yields, issuers made the most of excellent conditions to pull off impressive deals.

Agence Française de Développement is preparing to issue its first green bond since September 2018.

Santander Consumer Finance in Germany attracted excessive demand for its debut benchmark Pfandbrief which offered a considerable pick-up over swap rates. However, demand was more tentative for La Banque Postale’s 15 year, possibly due to renewed volatility in rates.

The European Investment Bank and the Province of Quebec were well subscribed as they re-opened the dollar SSA market following the extended Lunar New Year holiday. Two more public sector borrowers will follow with dollar bonds on Wednesday, ahead of what is expected to be a busy month in the currency.

Caffil found good demand for a tightly priced €750m 20 year covered bond on Tuesday — the longest maturing deal issued by a core European bank so far this year. Hamburger Sparkasse was able to launch an eight year Pfandbrief benchmark in the same window, also without giving away much of a premium.

Atos has sold most of its remaining shares in Wordline, the French payments company, via an accelerated bookbuild.

French video games developer and accessories company Nacon is attempting to tap into growing investor interest in the games development sector, with an IPO on the Paris Bourse.

Caffil mandated lead managers on Monday for the longest core European covered bond of the year so far. The deal takes advantage of the surge in demand for absolute return following a plunge in yields that has taken most of the covered bond market into negative yielding territory. Bankers are also hopeful that Nordic covered bond supply will emerge this week.