Covered Bonds

Investors piled into a Unione di Banche Italiane (UBI) €1.25bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite on Monday, despite it offering no new issue premium and being the issuer’s largest and longest transaction in at least six years

National Bank of Greece (NBG) is poised to issue the first post-crisis Greek covered bond, having drawn confidence from the blowout reception Santander Totta won for its €1bn 10 year this week — the longest Portuguese deal since 2010. Bill Thornhill reports.

Vseobecna uverova banka and Stadtsparkasse München have both been keeping the sub-benchmark covered bond market busy with deals this week.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia subsidiary, ASB Finance, has mandated leads for a roadshow to market its first covered bond of the year and the third from a New Zealand issuer.

Nationale-Nederlanden (NN Bank) has mandated leads to market its first covered bond, which will have an intermediate conditional pass-through maturity.

The Cover's 11th annual covered bond awards took place this year at Casa Llotja de Mar in Barcelona on Thursday, September 14. The awards reflected the judgment of more than 600 market participants, including over 300 investors, who reported buying €150bn covered bonds in the past 12 months.

PKO Bank Hipoteczny extended its covered bond curve this week with a deal that was more widely distributed and attracted more demand than any of its previous deals.

If the market commentariat thinks that the buy-side should be worried by upcoming European Central Bank tapering, then someone has yet to tell investors.

The various constituencies of the covered bond market voted quite differently this year and in some cases the final winning margins were close. See how the market voted for this year’s awards.

Santander Totta took advantage of the paucity of peripheral 10 year covered bond supply, a Portuguese sovereign rating upgrade and buoyant credit conditions to issue a well received €1bn transaction on Tuesday. Meanwhile, PKO Bank signalled its intention to open books soon.

Caffil set final terms of 2bp through mid-swaps for its no-grow €750m trade, this being the tightest spread the issuer has ever achieved for a 10 year trade.

The Cover and GlobalCapital held the annual Covered Bond Awards Dinner on Thursday night at Casa Llotja de Mar in Barcelona, celebrating the best performers in the market.