French Sovereign

Vallourec’s bond issue may have gone well today, but for the other corporate issuers in euros and sterling it was a much rougher ride. Accor launched a €150m tap and RCI Banque a £250m sterling three year – but neither managed to tighten pricing from their initial thoughts.

Vallourec, the French oil and gas pipeline maker, issued a €500m 10 year bond on Tuesday after building a book of €3.1bn, despite a jittery day for the equity market.

Sales of shares in French electrical equipment supplier Rexel and liquid natural gas firm GTT on Monday night showed the cautious approach that many investors are taking in the fourth quarter. Investors quickly and strongly supported Rexel’s deal in a large, liquid and well known stock but avoided the more unusual one in GTT, and hedge funds are eschewing their typical tactics.

Vallourec, the French oil and gas pipelines maker, is set to issue a €500m no-grow 10 year bond on Tuesday.

French chemicals company Arkema has proposed a €1.74bn acquisition of adhesives maker Bostik from Total. The company has agreed a €1.5bn bridge facility and its longer term financing plans comprise a rights issue, hybrid capital and senior bonds.

A burst of M&A announcements early this week from Danish national phone carrier TDC, auto parts maker ZF Friedrichshafen in Germany and French telecoms firm Orange lifted the mood in the western European loans market. But Orange's financing plans, which include hybrid bonds, show that deals may not always lead to loan mandates.

This week's scorecard covers the funding progress of selected sovereign issuers. Read on to see which are over the 80% mark.

This week's scorecard covers the funding progress of sovereign issuers, with all of the eurozone periphery comfortably ahead in their programmes despite some wobbles in secondaries over the past month.

This week's scorecard covers the funding progress of sovereign issuers, with all of the eurozone periphery comfortably ahead in their programmes despite some recent wobbles in secondaries.

Read on to see how selected benchmarks are faring in secondary. Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark as of Thursday's close. The source for secondary trading levels is Interactive Data.

French regional and local government borrowers are expected to increase their capital markets debt — with the help of municipal borrower Agence France Locale — to 18% of their total debt stock over the next three years, Moody’s said on Thursday.

This week's scorecard covers the funding progress of sovereign issuers, with most issuers moving into the second half of their funding programmes. Next week's scorecard will deal with European supranationals and agencies.