Covered Bonds

The list of Norwegian covered bond debuts continues to grow with Moody’s assigning a top rating to OBOS Boligkreditt, the largest housing and real estate developer in Norway. The agency now rates 18 Norwegian covered bond programmes in this nation of five million people.

Four years after Spain approved a new legal framework to support funding of export finance loans, BBVA has set up the first covered bond programme to be backed by the loans, which Moody’s rated on Wednesday. And with Spain set to update its Cédulas Hipotecarias law, others may be obliged to follow.

BayernLB successfully issued a $300m Pfandbrief at a tighter spread than it could have achieved in euros. It follows a privately placed sterling Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite (OBG) issued by Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna (BPER).

FMS Wertmanagement (FMS-WM) has bought most covered bonds issued by the Irish and Luxembourg subsidiaries of the DEPFA Group and should soon remove their Aa2 rating.

July’s pitifully low covered bond supply should be easy to beat. Given that the market is likely to remain receptive and issuers will not want to compete for attention when the market properly reopens in September, August should be busier.

The Cover and GlobalCapital are joining forces. From the start of next week, The Cover’s new home page will be in the FIG section of GlobalCapital, and your daily email alerts will come from GC.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has set out new proposals aimed at cooling house price inflation, which it says has become increasingly disconnected from household incomes.

The low level of liquidity in the secondary covered bond market is being reflected by European Central Bank data, which shows daily purchases have fallen to one of the lowest levels since its programme begun.

After a decade of growth, the global covered bond market has shrunk in the last two years, but steep falls in European supply have almost been matched by growth in other markets.

After widening substantially in the run-up to the UK referendum on EU membership, UK covered bonds have now found a base with dealers reporting better buying and analysts recommending overweight positions. Spreads should remain supported, along with those in peripheral Europe, as supply is likely to be very limited over the remainder of this year.

GE Money Bank in France on Friday offered up extra spread on the subordinate tranche of its €850m French RMBS deal, the first publicly placed deal in the asset class since July 2015.

Reviving the UK RMBS market in the aftermath of the country’s vote to leave the European Union is seen as key to maintaining issuance levels in European ABS – but despite steady secondary trading and a market reopening deal, it is far from clear that this is possible.