France

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.

French glass packaging company Verallia’s registration document has been approved by AMF, France’s market regulator, paving the way for a €4bn IPO on Euronext Paris.

Erste Group and Crédit Agricole competed for covered bond investors’ attention at the long end of the curve on Wednesday with a rise in yields helping boost demand, particularly for the Austrian deal which started with a generous spread. At the same time Deutsche Hypo issued a three year.

France’s benchmark index the CAC 40 has outperformed all of its Western European peers bar Italy this year, leading to hope that this autumn’s French IPOs will be well received by investors, despite the wider macroeconomic and political uncertainties stalking European equity markets.

Barcelona-headquartered paper company Lecta is appealing to bondholders as it tries to strengthen its capital structure. Its bonds are now trading in the 30s while the CVC-sponsored company has fully used its revolving credit facility and is running out of external sources of financing.

Edenred, the French provider of corporate vouchers, has reopened the European equity-linked market after the summer with a €500m sale of convertible bonds due in 2024 that attracted more than 100 investors, according to sources close to the transaction.

Deutsche Hypo, Erste Group and Credit Agricole SCF have mandated leads for covered bonds that are all expected to carry negative yields.

Crédit Agricole CIB has appointed Pierre-Francois Martineau as a managing director in the bank’s new leveraged and telecom finance group (LTFG) in Paris.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) unearthed strong demand for the first negative yielding non-German covered bond of the year, and the first with a long tenor.

Issuance is starting to resume after the summer break; however, this week a booming public market drew away investor and issuer attention from MTNs. Despite this, a range of established SSA, FIG and corporate borrowers have slipped in, with deals across core, niche and EM currencies.