Natixis

Corporate bond issuers made full use of the last few days before the European Central Bank's much-anticipated announcement on monetary policy on Thursday. Despite the hectic activity of the past two weeks, investors were still oversubscribing deals two or three times.

Commerzbank attracted only €700m of demand for a €500m non-preferred senior bond this week, with a lead manager suggesting the deal showed the ‘state of the market’ as it welcomes an influx of tightly priced supply.

Arié Boleslawski has joined Natixis to run its equities business.

FIG bond bankers are worried, as one put it, that “the steam is coming out of the Kangaroo market” after Thursday’s additional tier 1 (AT1) deal from Société Générale failed to reach the heights of deals from UBS and BNP Paribas earlier in the summer.

Five new corporate bond issues including a €3bn issue from AT&T hit the market on Wednesday, after Danaher had completed its €6.25bn deal on Tuesday, leaving room for more companies to borrow.

A new flurry of investment grade corporate bond issuers jumped into the market on Wednesday morning, after Danaher priced its €6.25bn five-tranche Reverse Yankee note. Getting that deal out of the way gave other corporate borrowers room to bring bonds of their own — and plenty are expected to in the run-up toe the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement on September 12.

French bank BPCE has mandated lead managers for a potential five year senior preferred deal in the Australian dollar market — its first this year in the currency.

Natixis has been building out its Asia Pacific presence, making some senior changes to its global markets team and adding three new bankers.

MEA-based waste management services provider Averda has amended and extended an existing term loan facility, garnering 70% oversubscription.

Demand for the Republic of Finland’s latest bond was high on Wednesday as it printed through the ECB deposit rate to sell “the most expensive syndication of all time”, according to a banker on the deal. The five year note came 29.9bp richer than Austria’s previous record holding deal, another five year note sold in June.

Natixis has relocated London-based Kwong-Wing Law to Hong Kong to be its infrastructure finance head for Asia Pacific.

KBC only needed to offer a slim new issue premium to attract €2bn of demand for a new tier two bond this week. The deal pricing was squeezed by 20bp from initial price thoughts, resembling senior deals from other issuers.