Société Générale

On Friday, Unilever Spreads released guidance for its €4.6bn equivalent loan to fund its acquisition by KKR. French telecoms infrastructure group Circet also launched a smaller deal, a €570m loan package for its buyout by Advent. But investor demand isn't satisfied yet, say some market participants.

Econocom, the Belgian provider of digital business-to-business services, shook off fears over stockmarket volatility to issue a €200m convertible bond on Thursday.

RCI Banque was one of the first issuers to sell a corporate bond in 2018. It has returned two months later with a dual-tranche offering which took advantage of demand for floating rate notes as well as fixed rate paper.

Six of the nine investment grade corporate new issues in the last week of February were announced with a three letter acronym that, while providing clarity, served to frustrate investors keen to see greater volumes of issuance. WNG stands for “will not grow” and this week told investors that the meagre sized deals would not be increased, irrespective of demand.

Republic of Senegal could well have timed to perfection its plans to issue a euro-denominated bond with EM investors calling this the “last chance” for EM borrowers to take advantage of extraordinarily low interest rates in the currency.

Banks unleashed a blizzard of floating rate bond issuance on the euro market this week, tapping into some pent-up demand from investors. But the return of the long-neglected and more defensive FRN format suggests that issuers feel as though they could be on shakier ground in the primary market this year.

Finnish residential property developer Kojamo and French care home operator Orpea added to the geographical diversity of the property company corporate bonds sold this week with a €500m seven year deal, while frequent issuer RCI Banque sold a dual tranche offering

Nexity, the French property developer, increased a convertible bond issue from €180m to €200m on Tuesday after receiving strong demand.

Société Générale has become the third bank to sell a five year non-preferred senior bond in floating rate format this week, but the French bank was unable to replicate the earlier successes of BBVA and Crédit Agricole.

Five new investment grade corporate bond deals were priced on Tuesday and, while pricing was competitive, none of the issuers allowed for any growth in the size of the deals as all five used a no-grow strategy.

Republic of Senegal is planning to make its first funding foray into euros, following its fellow West African nation Cote d’Ivoire to fund in its natural currency.

Koninklijke Philips, the Dutch healthcare technology group, cut its stake in Philips Lighting to 18.3% through an accelerated bookbuild on Monday night.