Société Générale

Investors are hedging and betting on oil prices as markets remain unsure about whether or not US President Donald Trump will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.

Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE Corp, which has failed to comply with a covenant on a $450m syndicated loan due in July, has requested lenders to waive the breach, according to bankers close to the situation.

South Korea’s Busan Bank raised Rmb500m ($78.62m) from its first Formosa bond last Friday, taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity to swap the deal back to dollars.

Société Générale said on Thursday that deputy CEO Séverin Cabannes would take over supervision of global banking and investor solutions, a role vacated by Didier Valet over the bank's Libor investigation.

Vonovia, the largest residential property company in Germany, raised €1bn on Thursday night to finance its proposed acquisition of Victoria Park, the Swedish property company.

Investors appear certain that the Federal Open Market Committee will up its target rate at its next meeting in June, after this week’s gathering left levels unchanged, although expectations of further hikes have slightly fallen. Elsewhere, a supranational left next to nothing on the table as it brought a dollar syndication to market.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development looked to have taken almost every last cent off the table after increasing the size of a dollar floater from the size it set earlier in the day.

London-listed Ophir Energy has agreed a bridge loan to back its $205m acquisition of southeast Asian assets from Australian oil and gas company Santos.

HSBC has hired Société Générale's Hubert Preschez as co-head of global banking in France, to start in September.

David Lim has rejoined Credit Suisse in the newly created position of vice-chairman for private banking, southeast Asia, effective next week.

Société Générale on Wednesday morning revealed that it had listed 74 leveraged exchange traded products for trading on the London Stock Exchange, aiming squarely at sophisticated retail investors.

Despite expectations of a slowdown in the pace of issuance in the European high yield market, two borrowers brought €2.9bn of new bonds this week. Both issuers, Spanish construction firm Aldesa and Italian banking payments group Nexi, marketed refinancing deals.