Natixis

Belgian private equity firm Cobepa is funding its acquisition of Scalian, the engineering consultancy, with two French investment banks.

Appetite for eurozone sovereigns is showing no signs of slowing down after Ireland and Portugal joined Belgium this week in scoring their largest ever syndication order books. Several other borrowers sold euro trades on Wednesday, with more supply expected this week as the pipeline has “accelerated” ahead of next week’s parliamentary vote on the UK’s Brexit deal.

Belgium and KfW received well oversubscribed order books for 10 year euro benchmarks on Tuesday, with several public sector borrowers set to follow in the euro market this week.

French telecoms operator Orange ensured the cobwebs were blown off the corporate bond market on Tuesday when it launched the first multi-tranche offering of 2019, which included the longest tenor of the year to date and the year’s first sterling corporate bonds in its four tranches.

Aircraft leasing company Avolon has returned to the offshore syndications market for a $300m loan.

The European Financial Stability Facility rebooted the euro public sector market on Monday with an intraday execution ahead of what SSA bankers expect to be a busy week for supply. Belgium and KfW are already on screens for benchmark trades in the 10 year part of the curve.

As is becoming traditional in the European corporate bond market, car finance issuers sold the first new issues of the year. The fact the market had to wait just one day was a positive, considering that the backdrop was largely unchanged from the end of 2018, when the market had been difficult to access. However, there were some warning signs other issuers will do well to heed.

The European corporate bond market had to wait just one day for the first new issue of 2019. Some participants had expected volatility in the global financial markets to result in a blank first week for corporates, but finance subsidiaries of Renault and Toyota opted to start their financing for the year on Thursday.

Natixis’s share price plunged on Wednesday after the bank reported a €260m hedging loss in its Asian equity derivatives business, an event which some analysts say other firms could suffer in 2019.

Russian Copper Co (RCC) has closed a $250m five year credit facility, marking the second refinancing that RCC has secured this year. The tight margin sparked a sliver of optimism in the market.

The UK’s CityFibre has signed a £1.12bn debt package from seven banks, as the Goldman Sachs-linked fibre broadband infrastructure provider rolls out its nationwide competition against incumbent firms BT and Virgin Media.

Fosun Tourism Group, a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, is being spun-off and has started bookbuilding for its HK$4.28bn ($547.19m) Hong Kong IPO.