Covered Bonds

ABN Amro took advantage of the more positive mood that followed Dutch elections and its earnings results to tap its existing 20 year by €750m to make the transaction the largest outstanding deal in that maturity.

WL Bank took advantage of strong funding conditions — and a reverse enquiry — to issue a tightly priced 20 year public sector backed Pfandbrief on Thursday, the longest covered bond from Germany this year. The transaction follows the announcement of plans to merge the cover pools of WL Bank and DG Hyp.

BNP Paribas Fortis issued Belgium’s first covered bond of the year on Thursday, taking advantage of the strong market conditions that followed Dutch elections to price a €500m seven year with a tiny new issue concession.

Covered bonds are well supported but markets have seen profit-taking on an asset swap basis reflecting the view that spreads are expected to go wider in coming months, traders told GlobalCapital on Wednesday.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) stepped into the euro covered bond market for the first time with a well received €500m deal that capitalised on strong technical demand in the five year part of the curve.

Crédit Agricole Cariparma priced the first Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite of the year on Tuesday, with the two part long-dated transaction attracting demand of almost €3bn and printing at a record spread through BTPs.

Patrick Seifert will become head of primary markets at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, taking over from Patrick Steeg who will move to the firm’s asset and liability management business.

Crédit Agricole Cariparma is expected to issue the first Italian covered bond of the year after it mandated leads for an eight and 12 year which is likely to be launched on Tuesday. The offering takes advantage of technically squeezed market conditions exacerbated by the lack of peripheral European supply.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (OCBC) will become the third Singaporean borrower to issue a euro-denominated covered bond this year and is expected to open order books for its debut deal on Tuesday. The deal is going to be a rare five year, so it is likely to get good execution.

Strict asset encumbrance limits imposed by regulators in Canada and Singapore could be increased, in a move that could improve covered bond supply from the two regions.

Volksbank Wien could be preparing to launch its first publicly syndicated euro covered bond after Moody’s published a presale report and assigned a top rating to its covered bond programme on Thursday.

Ship financing has been through a torrid time as falling prices have tested and broken the business models of the main German lenders — and so the ship-backed Pfandbrief market has virtually run aground. But Danmarks Skibskredit, an established Danish shipping lender with a strong track record, is mulling a euro-denominated shipping covered bond, and trying to change investors' views of the product, delegates heard at the LBBW covered bond forum on Thursday.