France

One of Banca Imi's vice presidents of loan syndications in London has joined Commerzbank's international loan origination team in Paris.

Groupe BPCE and BNP Paribas issued green bonds this week, attracting strong levels of demand for such a late stage in the year.

Crédit Agricole and Santander raised a combined €3bn of 10 year covered bond funding on Wednesday, with joint demand of over €5bn. Both deals were special in their own right, with the Spanish deal paying a rare double digit spread over mid-swaps, while the French borrower’s inaugural green transaction will have drawn a rich new seam of demand from buyers with a green investment mandate.

Intesa Sanpaolo and BNP Paribas hurried to make use of strong market conditions this week, building blowout order books for a pair of new senior deals in socially responsible formats.

Two senior French equity capital markets and coverage bankers who left Société Générale two months ago have joined arch-rival BNP Paribas.

Ermewa, a train lessor owned by France's state-owned railway company SNCF, is set to sell private placements to a collection of six institutional investors — none of which are from France.

BPCE appealed to a wide range of investors by adding a green element to its preferred senior bond on Tuesday. The trade was met with hefty orders, even though investors are showing signs of winding down for the year.

Two French public sector agencies have closed their borrowing programmes for the year below their planned size, with one agency cutting short its funding by almost a third.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made in their funding programmes as we approach the end of November.

The successful IPO of Française des Jeux, the French gaming company that runs the national lottery, this week gave encouragement to government plans to privatise more state assets. Sam Kerr reports.

Covered bond spreads were holding steady on Thursday as bank traders lighten their balance sheets amid modest secondary market buying from the European Central Bank (ECB), ahead of Crédit Agricole and Nordea’s inaugural green transactions and Raiffeisen Bank International’s vanilla debut.

Caisse de Refinancement de l’Habitat (CRH) returned to the covered bond market on Wednesday to issue a €1bn seven year covered bond, but attracted €1.4bn less demand than for its €1bn 10 year, issued in October.