Natixis

Financial institutions have ramped up their sales of green debt at the start of 2021, as they look to take advantage of a quiet funding year by building out their environment, social and governance frameworks. This week, nearly all FIG euro issuance arrived in ESG formats.

Bureau Veritas, the French laboratory testing company, has amended its €600m bank line to include ESG elements, as the company is on course to breeze through its relaxed covenant restrictions at the next evaluation.

Environment, social and governance (ESG) themed debt has dominated the senior market this week, with the format helping to secure more execution certainty in a softer trading environment.

NatWest Group sold the first social housing bond from a UK financial issuer on Tuesday, attracting a highly granular peak order book of over €4.5bn. Investors have latched onto environment, social and governance (ESG) linked bank supply over the past few weeks, with two more labelled deals set to follow in the coming days.

Infrequent Nowegian borrower SpareBank 1 Østlandet is set to print its first green bond as it looks to extend its benchmark senior curve out to 2028.

This week was the busiest of the year so far for bank senior supply in euros, as issuers took advantage of strong market conditions after posting full year results.

Nykredit Realkredit opted to tap the seven year point of the curve on Monday as it issued senior non-preferred debt ahead of a deadline for regulatory debt buffers in 2022.

Rating: Aa2/—/AA

BPCE is drawing Natixis closer at a pivotal time for the investment bank and European banking consolidation, writes David Rothnie.

Société Générale and Natixis both endured a difficult 2020 in their markets business, but in the fourth quarter their equities divisions managed to pull off a brighter performance.

BPCE is planning to buy the stake in Natixis it does not already own, and is also examining splitting it up, placing its corporate and investment banking activities and asset and wealth management branch into a new structure.

Spain will lead the public sector borrowers' charge into the primary bond market this week with its second ever 50 year benchmark syndicated deal ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday.