HSBC

French food and drugs tester Eurofins Scientific priced a €500m seven year bond on Tuesday, following a roadshow last week. The first unrated senior corporate bond deal of the year, it was three times subscribed.

HSBC has made a new appointment to its loan syndications team, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

John Laing, the infrastructure project firm, will seek to float in London to raise £130m of primary proceeds, less than a year after successfully floating its environmental business for £160m.

State Grid Corp of China, which claims to be the world's largest utility, issued its first euro bond on Monday, a €1bn deal comprising seven and 12 year notes.

Enel, the Italian electricity company, has set the minimum spread for its new 10 year benchmark euro bond at 115bp over mid-swaps, which one banker described as a "very investor-friendly" level.

Baosteel Resources International (BRI) will meet investors next week ahead of a potential US dollar bond after mandating six banks.

Two international banks announced this week that they had helped clients complete two way RMB sweeping transactions outside the Shanghai pilot free trade zone (FTZ). Chinese regulators expanded the pilot scheme to the entire country in November 2014.

A $3.1bn piece of Tata Steel’s $5.6bn multi-trancher was signed in December with 34 lenders. The deal has been singled out for praise by many loans bankers for its structuring that led to success despite the borrower operating in the troubled steel sector.

Guarantor: Federal Republic of Germany

Covered bond issuers from outside the Eurozone launched deals this week denominated in sterling and Australian dollars. But a bigger proportion were from the Eurozone where borrowers launched deals in the single currency in maturities that ranged from four to 20 years. The transaction were priced generously and enjoyed a solid reception, with central banks taking a back seat.

Dutch cable company Ziggo accelerated its dual currency bond issue to price it on Wednesday after its sister company, Virgin Media of the UK, had sold the first bond of a restructuring plan involving four Liberty Global cable subsidiaries.

The covered bond market enjoyed its busiest week in the last three years as 16 borrowers launched benchmarks with a nominal value of €13.5bn ($15.70bn) across a range of currencies and tenors. But investors clearly showed a preference for the seven year — of which there were seven deals, accounting for half of this week’s supply.