Natixis

Legrand, the French electrical fittings manufacturer, issued a €300m bond on Wednesday, carving out a successful trade in the face of frantic activity.

Intesa Sanpaolo issued a €1.25bn 10 year covered bond on Wednesday, a transaction that did not initially seem to be an obvious trade, but which in the end proved very successful.

Legrand, the French electrical fittings manufacturer, issued a €300m bond amid busy action on Wednesday, carving out its own success in the face of frantic activity.

Arrangers have not set a closing date for the $1bn loan for the Sultanate of Oman, on which pricing has been widened recently, but bankers hope to close the deal before year end.

Corporate bond bankers are busy, for this time of year. While they are usually up for doing deals, it is clear investors, too, are in no hurry to close their books for the year, but are keen to buy paper, despite the let-down of the European Central Bank’s lukewarm QE boost last week.

Latvia has provided the only point of CEEMEA new issue activity this week so far, though the sovereign is shifting out of the emerging market universe.

The Sultanate of Oman has widened the pricing of its $1bn loan by 10bp to encourage banks to lend, after the sovereign was downgraded by Standard & Poor's in November.

Vivalto Santé, the French private health service provider, has announced €228m of loans for its leveraged buyout by Mubadala Development Co, the Abu Dhabi Government owned investment and development company.

A fundraising for a unit of China National Chemical Corp is set to increase to €630m ($683.6m) from the launch size of €600m, after more than 10 banks piled into the syndicate.

FIG bankers rejoiced this week as two markets that have been much maligned this year — insurance capital and sterling senior — showed enduring appeal just in time for a year end funding grab.

Banks can look forward to regularly pricing green bonds inside their vanilla senior curves, some FIG bankers believe, after BPCE launched the latest in a succession of tight trades on Wednesday.

BPCE issued final guidance on Thursday for its latest multi-tranche Samurai sale, giving investors plenty of choice with two senior and three subordinated tranches.