Covered Bonds

Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) mandated leads for a Sonia-linked covered bond on Wednesday, taking advantage of the excess demand that was identified in an earlier deal from Santander UK.

Demand for ground-breaking covered bonds issued on Wednesday by Deutsche Bank and Danish Ships Finance was adequate but both required hefty premiums — illustrating a higher degree of investor caution than had been expected.

Danish Ships Finance, Natixis Pfandbriefbank and Raiffeisen Bank International will keep the primary market busy with deals and roadshows this week. But the main focus will be on the size and spread that Deutsche Bank achieves for its innovative debut structured conditional pass through (CPT) covered bond that will be launched imminently.

HVB, the German subsidiary of UniCredit, on Tuesday attracted one of the highest orders books for a €1bn covered bond from a core European bank in the last six months. It was able to tighten the pricing gap by 4bp to a competing deal issued by OP Mortgage Bank.

The covered bond market was on strong form at the beginning of the week, with Austria’s Volksbank Wien extending its covered bond curve with its second ever trade, which it priced flat to fair value.

Caixa Económica Montepio Geral was able to tighten pricing for a five year conditional passthrough covered bond, issued on Thursday, by an extraordinary 17bp from the initial level, causing rival bankers to question why it had been necessary to start with what was called a preposterously tight 2bp spread range.

Covered bond market participants expressed surprise at the sluggishness of book updates on Credit Mutuel Arkéa’s debut public sector covered bond, issued on Thursday morning. But the deal ended up more than twice subscribed with a great deal of smaller orders and little price sensitivity in the book.

In an illustration of the spread tightening under way in covered bonds, Deutsche Apotheker-und Aerztebank (Dapo) priced a 10 year inside its curve this week. At the same time Raiffeisenlandesbank Vorarlberg followed DZ Bank into the 15 year tenor to give a tempting reoffer yield of almost 50bp.

A major investor in covered bonds told GlobalCapital this week that his firm was still positive on the near-term outlook for eurozone covered bonds, as they had lagged behind a more general credit spread tightening. That meant covered bonds still offered attractive value compared with government bonds, while the European Central Bank was stepping up its buying.

Hamburg Commercial Bank is offering to buy back up to €1bn of its Pfandbrief notes, as the newly privatised German lender seeks to reduce its assets and liabilities in line with one another.

Caixa Economica Montepio Geral (Montepio) mandated leads for the second Portuguese covered bond of the year on Tuesday, and NordLB Luxembourg has signaled its intention to press ahead with its debut renewable energy covered bond following a roadshow.

Caffil issued the tightest French 10 year of 2019 amid a flurry of other well received covered bonds issued on Tuesday by DZ Hyp, mBank and Santander UK. While the European Central Bank’s return to the market helped deals go well, it was not needed amid an improvement in risk appetite.