Société Générale

Three periphery issuers took the limelight in the senior market this week — Banco Espírito Santo, Bank of Ireland and La Caixa all selling euro benchmarks. All three issuers can be pleased with their order books — La Caixa recording hefty demand and Bank of Ireland and BES impressing on quality.

Hedge funds are not net-shorting their Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index futures positions and have started recently to hedge against a potential correction via S&P 500 puts, put spreads on emerging markets and best of puts on global indices.

Private placement investors are scrambling for Dexia Crédit Local's short dated floating rate notes. It began posting levels on Tuesday and quickly printed two trades, according to medium term note dealers.

Strong demand from European investors allowed Intralot, the Greek gambling products and services provider, to increase its high yield bond to €250m today and close the books ahead of schedule.

Taqa used the strategy of a capped size and fair starting point for price talk to print its $750m 10 year bond 10bp inside its outstanding curve on Tuesday, according to a lead manager. It built a $4.55bn book in the process.

Portuguese lender Banco Espírito Santo is set to continue the success of periphery bank deals on Monday, looking to appeal to investors on the hunt for yield with a three year deal.

Commodities trader Gunvor Singapore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gunvor Group, has opened up a $350m loan to the market, less than the anticipated $650m-$700m that it was first understood to be considering in March.

Only two weeks after successfully printing its inaugural government guaranteed senior unsecured bond, Caisse Centrale du Crédit Immobilier de France (3CIF) is looking to go another round.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, known as Taqa, sold its first euro note since October 2006 on Thursday.

In contrast to their evaporating taste for Russian risk, banks’ buoyant appetite for central and eastern European names was underlined this week as Energeticky a Prumyslovy Holding (EPH) launched its largest syndicated loan, writes Michael Turner.

Two contrasting equity-linked issuers received very different receptions as the convertible bond market re-opened this week.

Banks have been mandated to arrange a €1.7bn syndicated loan to refinance debt raised by Czech energy firm Energeticky a Prumyslovy Holding to buy a stake in Slovak gas company Slovensky Plynarensky Priemysel in January 2013.