France

The IPO of Française des Jeux, the French gaming company that runs the national lottery, has been well received during its first week of marketing and was covered on the full size of the deal within three hours of launch last week. Demand continued to grow throughout this week with retail demand driving momentum.

La Banque Postale has suggested that issuers of additional tier one (AT1) capital should drop the tradition of making large pricing steps in the euro market, after setting a very low coupon for its debut in the asset class this week.

French car parts maker Faurecia has gone against the headwinds buffeting the industry, cutting financing costs with its latest refinancing round. A number of other well known high yield borrowers are also rushing into the market before Christmas to switch their higher coupon paper into cheaper alternatives.

Danish Ships Finance, Natixis Pfandbriefbank and Raiffeisen Bank International will keep the primary market busy with deals and roadshows this week. But the main focus will be on the size and spread that Deutsche Bank achieves for its innovative debut structured conditional pass through (CPT) covered bond that will be launched imminently.

La Banque Postale is looking to strengthen its capital position with a new additional tier one bond, beginning investor meetings on Friday. The issuer joins a growing trend towards issuers employing six month par call options in their perpetual securities.

Covered bond market participants expressed surprise at the sluggishness of book updates on Credit Mutuel Arkéa’s debut public sector covered bond, issued on Thursday morning. But the deal ended up more than twice subscribed with a great deal of smaller orders and little price sensitivity in the book.

Société Générale reported a slump in overall profit as part of its third quarter results on Wednesday, but was keen to draw attention to a near-50bp improvement in its capital ratios, thanks to restructuring actions.

Caffil issued the tightest French 10 year of 2019 amid a flurry of other well received covered bonds issued on Tuesday by DZ Hyp, mBank and Santander UK. While the European Central Bank’s return to the market helped deals go well, it was not needed amid an improvement in risk appetite.

Spanish paper company Lecta moved closer to its restructuring on Friday, as the majority of its bondholders signed a lock-up agreement to swap debt for equity. The deal replaces €600m of 2022 and 2023 notes with new senior and junior notes and equity in the company.

French shopping centre operator Carmila visited the MTN market for the first time on Monday, 18 months after it last sold a bond via syndication. Rare issuer Toyota Industries Finance International returned to private placements at the end of last week to place its second euro floating rate MTN of the year.

The holding company of the Bolloré billionaire family is planning to issue an unspecified amount of unsecured notes. Their largest investment, a 26% stake in media giant Vivendi, will be excluded from some of the covenants designed to protect the investors.

Atos, the French IT services and consulting company, has reduced its exposure to Worldline via an intricate transaction involving a share sale, an exchangeable bond and a private placement of stock. In addition to the sale of shares owned by Atos, SIX Group entered into a collar transaction to hedge its exposure in Worldline.