Covered Bonds

Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal and Toronto Dominion Bank all issued euro covered bonds in good size this week, finding big savings over senior unsecured issuance. One leading investor said bringing these deals in a fragile market was opportunistic and reflected The Bank of Canada's more restrictive provision of emergency liquidity than in Europe.

AXA Bank successfully issued the first covered bond eligible for the European Central Bank’s newly established €750m Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) on Thursday. But, despite the ECB’s much increased firepower, the bonds still offered a pick up of around 30bp and the funding would barely been possible without the central bank's support.

In a sign of the strength of the Canadian banking sector, Bank of Montreal and Toronto Dominion Bank were able to access the euro covered bond market in good size on Thursday with deals that provided a substantial saving compared to senior unsecured issuance. The deals followed a series of measures to ease liquidity from the Bank of Canada, including widening repo' eligibility to covered bonds.

The dash for cash has had big repercussions on the short end of the covered bond market, where yields are now positive, even for German names.

Executing bond syndications from home has proved to be feasible, bankers said in the wake of Royal Bank of Canada’s five year covered bond issued on Tuesday. Even so, the lack of physical back-up from nearby colleagues and the seamless access to certain key functions such as trading means that working from home is very much second best in practice compared with normality.

Denmark and Sweden unveiled a number of policies to combat the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic this week, with big changes to their funding plans. Sweden has decided to focus on the short end with an increase in treasury bill and commercial paper borrowing, while Denmark has chosen to increase its overall funding programme.

Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce all attempted to access the covered bond market on Tuesday with euros clearly showing more depth than sterling. The fact the three issuers were in the market simultaneously, whilst a fourth was monitoring the market, is not coincidental and contrasts with European and UK issuers that already have a central bank liquidity life line.

Martin Roland has moved from FIG syndication at LBBW to funding and debt investor relations.

A good number of covered bond issuers are planning deals, and some had hoped to open books on Monday, but market conditions were too volatile. The market is open provided careful attention is paid to name, spread, tenor and timing — with the key to success down to careful preparation, bankers told GlobalCapital on Monday.

The European Central Bank's new stimulus package will lower supply and boost demand for covered bonds, suggesting that ECB president Christine Lagarde will in fact 'close spreads' in the asset class. For now though, valuations remain under pressure and spreads are likely to widen in the short term.

With primary bond markets all but shut, thanks to the volatility caused by the spread of the coronavirus, banks are expected to rely more heavily on “cheapest to deliver” — and more reliable — sources of funding provided by central banks and the covered bond market, bankers told GlobalCapital on Thursday.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) became the first bank outside Europe to issue a deeply negative yielding covered bond in a good size on Wednesday. The transaction provided a beacon for other issuers and was perfectly timed to benefit from a window of market stability between Monday’s and Thursday’s shocking volatility.