In brief: Almost Eu1bn of French taps yesterday (Wednesday) maintained primary flows, but despite a successful European Union bond sale and Spanish auction that bankers said reflected a receptive market, no new issues emerged today (Thursday).

“There is absolutely nothing going on besides this EU deal, which seems to have gone quite well,” said a syndicate official. “It’s a strange market.”

The February 2014 tap for Crédit Mutuel-CIC was priced at 47bp over mid-swaps by leads Natixis and Nomura was sized at Eu300m after the leads generated orders of around Eu350m.

“Given the backdrop, we had thought we might do Eu100m or Eu200m, but we were able to get Eu350m of demand,” said a syndicate official at one of the leads. “The issuer could do Eu300m maximum so we shut down the book once we got past that level.

“There was good participation out of Asia and the Nordic region,” he added, “but nothing really out of France and Germany – although I don’t know if you can read anything into that.”

BNP Paribas, HSBC, Natixis and RBS priced CRH’s Eu650m January 2021 tap at 65bp over mid-swaps.

“We knew that there was demand for long dated French paper, so this came as no surprise,” said one banker. “Obviously there is a lot of French buying at the long end given their yield requirements, so quality long dated issues are clearly going to go well.”