Société Générale

The fourth quarter began on a rocky note for global equities but the US high grade bond market has shrugged off concerns about stalling growth and issuance conditions remain strong.

Banco Santander hit screens this week to sell its first green bond. The deal attracted orders more than five times its €1bn size.

The UK’s Sonnedix has signed €189m of non-recourse financing, with the independent solar power producer financing an acquisition of 55 MW of generational capacity in northern France.

Nordgold and Veon Holdings both printed bonds on Wednesday. But a difficult market backdrop forced Veon to print at a smaller size than expected and at a wide end of revised guidance. The execution of Nordgold’s bond seemed smoother, but investors said it was struggling to stay above reoffer on Thursday morning.

Italy’s first inflation-linked syndication in more than two years hit the market on Wednesday and raised €4bn from a book of €22bn, far outstripping the €6.4bn book for its previous linker sale.

Swiss investors’ thirst for yield was quenched in some style at the end of last week, when Russian Railways printed the largest Swiss franc transaction of the year from an emerging market borrower.

A pair of CEE corporates, Veon Holdings and NordGold, released initial price guidance for bonds on Tuesday, both offering paper after a break from international issuance.

Neoen, the French renewable energy company, returned to the capital markets on Wednesday, following its popular €697m IPO in October last year, with a debut €200m convertible bond due in 2024.

Initial price guidance has been set for two corporate bonds from issuers in the CEE region — EP infrastructure and Metinvest. Both deals expected to be printed later on Tuesday.

Sopra Steria, a French consulting and computer services business, has raised €250m of Euro Private Placements (Euro PP).

Alstom, the French maker of railway rolling stock, was the only high grade company to announce any corporate bond activity on Monday, as a public holiday in Germany and the huge flows of the last month kept the new issue market shuttered.

Crédit Agricole, Banque Fédérative du Cedit Mutuel and Société Générale all took advantage this week of cheap funding offered by the sterling market when compared with the euro.