Covered Bonds

ANZ Bank launched a five year euro benchmark on Tuesday, despite a weak market backdrop. In contrast to its Aussie dollar 10 year covered bond launched a few weeks earlier, the euro transaction attracted a tepid response.

ABN Amro returned to the covered bond market on Thursday with its first deal of 2013, a €1.5bn 10 year. After being out of the market for just over a year, the borrower attracted a comfortably oversubscribed order book in a very short time, underscoring a much greater depth to the market than ANZ’s recent funding appeared to suggest.

ABN Amro returned to the covered bond market on Thursday with its first deal of 2013, a €1.5bn 10 year. After being out of the market for just over a year, the borrower attracted a comfortably oversubscribed order book in a very short time span, underscoring a much greater depth to the market than ANZ’s recent funding appeared to suggest.

Bankers have played down fresh reports of Dutch government plans to set up a mortgage financing agency to fund low risk mortgages. The topic has been under discussion for some time and the final outcome remains uncertain, bankers told The Cover on Thursday.

Austria’s Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederoesterreich-Wien (RLB NW) is set to price its first deal of the year late in September and mandated leads on Thursday for a benchmark euro deal that will follow a three day roadshow.

Bankers reported on Thursday that there has been barely any movement in Hypo Real Estate Holding bonds since it announced on Monday that it would start looking for a buyer for its Depfa Bank plc subsidiary, thereby fulfilling the European Commission’s conditions for its earlier bail-out.

After deals from Wells Fargo and ANZ Bank on Tuesday, FIG issuers stepped back from the primary market on Wednesday with bankers citing concern about possible Western military intervention in Syria as the reason why borrowers have put their plans on hold.

ANZ Bank’s €1bn five year, priced on Tuesday at 17bp over mid-swaps, was placed with around 50 accounts after leads built a €1.15bn book.

Buying interest for core paper in the secondary market remains buoyant, despite volatility in other corners of the credit markets, and bankers reckon a deal from a strong name would still work. Issuers decided to hold off on Wednesday, however, as Kommunalkredit Austria joined the pipeline.

ANZ Bank launched a five year euro benchmark on Tuesday, despite a weak market backdrop, only a few weeks after it tapped the Aussie dollar market with a 10 year covered bond.

Chile’s new covered bond legislation, through which Banco Santander Chile issued the country’s first covered bond in August, lacks crucial features that would give the country’s covered bonds a higher rating than the issuer’s senior unsecured rating, according to Fitch Ratings.

The four euro benchmarks that were priced this week are mostly trading slightly tighter in the secondary market, despite being priced with very small new issue premiums. Along with a period of benign macroeconomic news, the negative net supply of euro benchmarks in 2013 has created a particularly supportive backdrop for new issues, according to covered bond bankers.