Covered Bonds

Covered bond spreads look set to keep tightening, particularly German Pfandbriefe, said market watchers. And even though covered bond purchases under the European Central Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (Pepp) have so far proved rather limited, some bankers believe this buying may increase as the institution announced a bigger than expected increase to the scheme on Thursday.

Barclays was positively surprised at how quickly capital markets reopened and it wasted little time issuing senior and tier two deals while its treasury team were still working from home. The UK lender is likely to use the Bank of England's Term Funding for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (TFSME) facility, which will lower its secured funding needs. The bank was well capitalised going into the crisis and has buttressed itself against the expected tide of credit impairments with a prudent level of provisioning.

Investors were eager to buy a euro benchmark seven year covered bond from NordLB Luxembourg on Wednesday, enabling the bonds to be priced flat to the issuer’s curve. That illustrating the strength of demand in what one lead manager described as a “hot” market.

Spanish house prices fell for the first time in four years in the first quarter this year, but even so, the Cédulas market is in a much stronger position to weather further expected falls than it was when house prices dove in 2007 and 2012. And based on the recent performance, even if spreads were to widen, some investors would be likely to consider the move as an opportunity to buy.

Nordea has made extensive use of Nordic currency covered bond markets through the coronavirus crisis and, as spreads have stabilised, has selectively issued senior preferred deals across a broad range of other FX. The bank says it has plenty of time to meet its regulatory funding needs and has no imminent plans to issue subordinated debt given the recent relaxation of capital requirements.

Estonia’s LHV Pank sold its first covered bond on Tuesday, attracting very good demand for the sub-benchmark deal, which provided it with long term funding from new investors.

Deutsche Hypo took advantage of the public Pfandbrief market before the coronavirus crisis struck and since then has been busy issuing privately placed senior deals. Spreads have since tightened, which should help issuance bounce back. But ready access to favourable European Central Bank repo funding means supply will be restricted. Some parts of the German commercial real estate market are likely to be facing trouble too, but even so, Pfandbrief investors are well protected.

Strong market conditions and tight spreads should encourage a few covered bond issuers to consider returning to the market in June, and though balance sheet optimisation is likely to remain the biggest driver of primary market activity, a surge in covered bond redemptions will play a critical role.

DNB entered 2020 better capitalised than ever, and having taken the opportunity to get ahead with its regulatory funding at the end of last year, it was also better financed than ever. Even so, following the regulator's decision to delay implementation of MREL target by one year, DNB could return to the covered bond market in the latter half of 2020.

Features in UK covered bond programmes offer limited protection and could lead to a delay in the classification of defaulted loans, Moody’s said this week. Meanwhile in Europe, regulators have muddied the waters on payment moratoria legislation.

Société Générale SFH has issued a second Obligations de Financement de l’Habitat (OFH) deal as a security token using a protocol that can be fully integrated with other blockchains and, for the first time, was settled using the Banque de France’s newly developed digital currency and structured with industry-aligned smart contracts.

Axa Bank SCF became the first bank since February to issue a 20 year covered bond — showing investors' growing appetite for risk. It also offered encouragement to eurozone issuers with long term funding needs to return to the market — especially given the strong performance of deals eligible for the ECB's purchase programmes compared with those that are not.