France

Verallia, the French maker of bottles and jars, has begun bookbuilding for its €962m IPO, which will be the largest flotation in France more than two years.

Ubisoft Entertainment, the French video games developer behind Far Cry and Assassins Creed, issued a five year €526m convertible bond, adding to the wave of issuance in Europe over the past fortnight.

The Netherlands Development Finance Company debuted the first offshore Bolivian boliviano bond last Friday. Meanwhile on Monday, French agency Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations again returned to the ultra-long end to place a pair of callable euro notes.

A group of French semiconductor maker Soitec’s senior managers have sold €98m worth of shares that vested as part of a three year stock compensation scheme that matured earlier this year.

French telecommunications company Altice France added another €1bn to its bond package, taking advantage of the historically issuer-friendly market conditions. The tranches were finalised after the European Central Bank announced a new round of stimulus, pushing down bond yields across the board.

KfW and Bpifrance were the first public sector borrowers out of the blocks in euros following last Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting in which it unleashed its new comprehensive stimulus package.

Bouygues, the French construction, telecoms and media group, has sold almost half its stake in Alstom, one of the largest manufacturers of rolling stock in the world, after the European Commission blocked a plan to merge the company with Siemens’ trains business earlier this year.

JP Morgan this week issued a €400m cash-settled exchangeable on LVMH, the French luxury goods conglomerate, in its latest synthetic outing, raising cheap funding while possibly hedging a derivatives transaction.

Caisse de Refinancement de l’Habitat, the specialist French covered bond issuer, has overcome regulatory hurdles and will issue covered bonds following a roadshow.

Specialist French lender My Money Bank SCF (MMB) returned to the covered bond market on Monday to issue its second deal, which attracted a more diverse and larger order book than its first. A positive yield helped, but so did the issuer’s investor relations effort, according to a lead manager.

The Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), made its Uzbekistani som debut this week to take advantage of funds flowing into EM currencies thanks to low rates in dollars. Elsewhere, euro investors are looking at the ultra-long end of the SSA market.

Credit Suisse has recruited a banker from Deutsche Bank to join its equity capital markets solutions origination team in Paris.