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Gatwick Airport brought the second sterling investment grade corporate bond of the week on Thursday, following Pennon’s £300m hybrid on Monday.

Spanish gas distribution company, NorteGas Energía Distribución, was the only investment grade corporate bond issuer in the euro market on Thursday. Its debut deal was a €1.3bn five year and 10 year dual tranche offering.

Societe Generale has hired Francisco Sottomayor as its head of global markets for Spain and Portugal.

The German pharmaceutical company, Stada, and the UK housebuilder, Miller Homes, both complete their high yield bond roadshows on Wednesday with the deals expected to follow before the end of the week.

In September, a number of issuers have returned to the European corporate bond markets after a number of years without issuing. On Wednesday, German chemicals distributor, Brenntag, Australian property company Goodman, and Austrian steel company, Voestalpine, were the latest to join that list.

Chinese investors warmly welcomed Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance’s second outing this year in China’s securitization market, helping the originator raise Rmb4.98bn ($760m) from the senior tranche of its deal.

On Tuesday, Gecina, the French property company, printed a successful €700m long 10 year bond, having sold €1.5bn of bonds as recently as the end of June to help fund its acquisition of Eurosic.

Engie, the French energy utility, priced its second green bond transaction of 2017 on Tuesday. The middle tranche of its three tranche offering extended the issuer’s green bond curve, however the longest tranche was not sold as a green bond.

After a 13 year absence, China's Ministry of Finance (MoF) is getting closer to tapping the dollar bond market again. But although some analysts say the issuance will help cut costs for Chinese corporates borrowing abroad, others were left scratching their heads over the timing of the deal given China's growing pile of FX reserves.

Hong Kong-based Sun Hung Kai Properties has received Chinese regulators’ blessing to issue Rmb10bn ($152.9m) worth of Panda bonds within the next two years, according to the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii).

Eleven benchmark corporate bond deals were priced in Europe this week, but even more are in the pipeline. Syndicate managers expect conditions to remain favourable for issuance in both euros and sterling.

The onshore subsidiary of HSBC priced a Rmb2bn ($305m) bond on September 12 targeting Bond Connect investors, a deal that could draw more attention to onshore issuance by foreign companies using local entities instead of choosing the Panda route.