Société Générale

Leveraged loan investors have recently started to win victories on deal terms, but on Thursday French engineering firm Socotec brought confirmation that market conditions are still in favour of borrowers. However, another of this week’s deals underlined the fact that investors can sometimes succeed in getting better terms.

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Spiralling core eurozone government yields helped the European Financial Stability Facility pull off a cracking dual tranche trade this week, picking up a hefty €3.5bn at the long end. That led to speculation that other issuers could look to grab some long end funding before the summer — but with rates still rising and a weak French sovereign bond auction on Thursday, the window may have passed.

After two days of no euro denominated corporate bond issuance, National Grid North America came with a rare corporate bond transaction on Wednesday. Pricing for the seven year deal moved in 25bp from the wide end of initial price thoughts (IPTs) in a trade that bankers away from the deal praised.

Pasubio, the Italian maker of speciality car upholstery, is funding its buyout by CVC with a leveraged loan and revolver launched on Wednesday in an issuer-friendly market.

Banco Santander has launched its €7.07bn fully underwritten rights issue to support its acquisition of the failed Banco Popular Español, saying it expects to make a return on investment on the deal of 13% to 14% by 2020.

The European Financial Stability Facility on Tuesday enjoyed the rare treat of bringing a dual tranche trade that garnered more interest for the longer than the shorter leg. That result surprised bankers away from the deal — but one of the leads said it may have been due to real money investors taking a punt that the end of eurozone quantitative easing is further off than some of their peers think.

On Monday night, the first equity block trade of the week in Europe came in the form of a sale of a 2% stake in Derichebourg, the French rubbish collection, recycling and outsourcing group that has a €1.2bn market cap, by the controlling family.

A sell-off in rates over the last few trading days should support the European Financial Stability Facility’s first trade of the third quarter, said bankers. The supranational mandated banks on Monday for a dual tranche trade in the belly and long end of the euro curve.

The European high yield bond market welcomed a bursting deal pipeline this week, leaving behind last week’s sabre rattling between investors and issuers.

The leveraged loan market is set to take in one more issuer from the high yield bond market as French jewellery retailer Thom Europe looks for new term loans to redeem all of its bonds.

French property company Gecina latched on to the latest trend for issuance in the multi-tranche European corporate bond on Tuesday, with a short dated floating rate tranche following other issuers to have done the same recently.