Covered Bonds

The public sector-owned French covered bond issuers, Caffil and La Banque Postale, returned to the covered bond market to issue two of the three 10 year deals seen this week. The deals were comfortably oversubscribed and provided exceptionally cheap funding for both issuers.

Thursday’s suite of covered bond issues from Australia and Switzerland underscored a growing impression among bankers that pricing core transactions is taking more forethought and effort. Whereas deals were invariably easy to price last year, demand seems to have become more finite. Books are taking longer to build as investors need more cajoling to meet issuers’ funding targets, in stark contrast to peripheral credits.

Korea has passed its Covered Bonds Act, a year after it was first expected, becoming the first Asian country to have legislation for covered debt.

Thursday’s suite of covered bond issues from Australia and Switzerland underscored a growing impression among bankers that pricing core transactions is taking more forethought and effort. Whereas deals were invariably easy to price last year, demand seems to have become more finite. Books are taking longer to build as investors need more cajoling to meet issuers’ funding targets, in stark contrast to peripheral credits.

Credits from Europe’s periphery are raking in orders in the FIG funding markets, but investors are also going starry-eyed at the sight of high-yielding subordinated debt from core jurisdictions. On Tuesday there was just under €11bn equivalent in supply across senior, covered bonds and sub debt in euros and sterling, with Italian credits dominating senior, while sub and covered let core European names get in on the action.

Portuguese and Spanish issuers, Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Banco Mare Nostrum launched deals on Wednesday that, despite being aggressively priced, were heavily oversubscribed. The deals showed demand is clearly skewed to higher yielding credits, boding well for second and third tier peripheral issuers who are looking to cut central bank funding dependence.

ANZ and La Banque Postale attracted good demand for their covered bonds on Wednesday, following solid investor endorsements for deals from core Europe on Tuesday. But in contrast to the periphery, where performance is more assured, core names offer limited performance potential and issuers are more likely to need premiums to get their deals away, said bankers.

The European Commission must ignore the counsel of the European Banking Authority, which has called for covered bonds to remain as level 2A assets within Basel III’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio. It must instead base its decision, due by June 30, on the EBA’s analysis that covered bonds are as liquid as sovereign bonds and good enough for Level 1 of the LCR.

The year’s first batch of covered bond issues have been easily absorbed by a wide range of investors producing comfortably oversubscribed books. The first peripheral deal mandate has come from Portugal and another from Spain is expected shortly.

Italian insurer Generali and UK lender Abbey National have both mandated leads for euro senior deals with more issuers expected to follow later this week, once several European countries return to work after Monday’s Epiphany holiday.

Four issuers from Finland, France, Australia and the UK are set to price covered bonds on Tuesday and Wednesday. Market conditions are broadly constructive, especially for higher yielding names, said bankers, but core issuers might have to offer concessions to tempt investors in a busy start to the year.

Changes to Italy’s covered bond law improve the segregation of cover pool assets and are good for the market, according to Moody’s.