Covered Bonds

The Irish and Luxembourg subsidiaries of Depfa Bank confirmed that they bought a combined €4.8bn covered bonds from FMS Wertmanagement (FMS-WM) which will be cancelled with the underlying assets sold back to the state-owned wind down agency, of which it is a wholly owned subsidiary.

The rate of the European Central Bank's covered bond purchases slowed again in the latest reporting period reflecting a scarcity of secondary market offers and a lack of new supply rather than a deliberate attempt to taper.

Berlin Hyp issued a €175m tap on Wednesday after it emerged that Crédit Agricole would not be proceeding with its previously announced 10 year. Meanwhile, Hypo Oberoesterreich signalled its intention to press ahead with its debut covered bond.

Crédit Agricole has mandated leads for a rare public sector-backed €500m 10 year Obligations Foncieres.

Panamanian lender Global Bank saw its new five year bonds trade up 50 cents on Friday as an improved credit profile allows the bank to buy back covered bonds using senior unsecured debt.

The Polish national champion successfully issued its first euro denominated covered bond benchmark on Monday, and the first publicly syndicated deal ever issued by a Polish bank in the euro market.

The head of group funding at UniCredit, Waleed El Amir, talked exclusively to GlobalCapital about meeting looming regulatory deadlines and the advantages of the covered bond market.

The debut covered bond of BNP Paribas Fortis and the first in four years from SNS Bank were priced on Monday with virtually no new issue concession to healthy levels of subscription.

Next week is likely to be one of the busiest in the fourth quarter in covered bonds, as a string of debut deals emerge, along with the first ever publicly syndicated euro benchmark from Poland.

Almost 72% of noteholders have participated early in the Panamanian covered bond lender’s tender offer.

Including redemptions and central bank buying, the investable eurozone covered bond market has shrunk almost €80bn so far this year. No surprise, then, that three seven year deals issued this week by Ibercaja, Banco Sabadell and Bank of Montreal were swamped with demand.

Maturing deals issued by Washington Mutual and National Bank of Greece show covered bonds doing precisely what they're supposed to — redeem in full and on time.