Société Générale

Commitments for CVC-owned French healthcare firm Elsan were due on Thursday for its €730m acquisition term loan, after guidance was tightened twice in an ever bullish loan market as the year end drew near.

UK and Irish investors took the market by surprise hoovering up over 40% of Crédit Agricole’s market opening senior non-preferred trade this week, though French accounts took the bulk of Société Générale’s follow-up deal.

Investors plugged another €3.5bn into the second ever senior non-preferred bond from Société Générale this week, in an early sign the market will be able to digest the large quantities expected from French banks next year.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi signed a $2bn three year loan on Tuesday, cementing the bank group for its $175bn merger with First Gulf Bank, though some key European banks turned down a role on the deal.

Investors greeted Crédit Agricole’s market opening senior non-preferred trade with more than €5bn of orders on Tuesday, allowing the issuer to bring pricing closer to its vanilla senior curve. Société Générale quickly showed it wanted to be next in line, in what is shaping up as an encouraging start for the new asset class.

Crédit Agricole looks set to issue its first ever senior non-preferred bond this month, after Sapin II was finally passed into French law on December 11.

Crédit Agricole announced a mandate for the first ever senior non-preferred bond on Thursday, in a move that confirmed French banks are very keen to start issuing in the format.

Banca Monte dei Paschi’s shares leapt 7% on Wednesday morning, on growing hopes that a way will be found for the Italian state to strengthen its balance sheet, enabling it to achieve a €5bn capital raising demanded by the European Central Bank and avoid a bail-in.

French health care group Elsan, owned by private equity firm CVC, on Tuesday announced price guidance on its €730m loan for the buyout of MédiPôle Partenaires.

Catalent Pharma and Thomas Cook — a reverse Yankee issuer and a UK holidays operator — on Thursday released guidance for high yield deals amounting some €900m in a market that has been mute since November 15.

Czech telcoms firm Ceska Telekomunikacni Infrastruktura (CETIN) attempted to throw off any emerging markets tag it bears on Tuesday, printing a €625m trade after a long marketing period tailored to investment grade funds in western Europe, according to two bankers on the deal.

Companies are continuing to use windows for corporate bond issuance ahead of Sunday’s Italian referendum, as three borrowers hit the euro bond market on Tuesday.