Covered Bonds

The French government has been forced to guarantee the debt of Credit Immobilier de France after it failed to find a buyer for the mortgage provider.

Simon White, Lloyds Banking Group’s head of senior and covered bond issuance, is to retire at the end of August after 33 years in the City.

Deutsche Bank brought the covered bond market to the brink of sub-Euribor pricing on Friday, issuing a €750m eight year mortgage Pfandbrief just a single basis point above mid-swaps. With the secondary squeeze grinding onwards syndicate bankers said it was only a matter of time until the Euribor barrier was broken.

Crédit Agricole CIB has been mandated to conduct a roadshow for a deal from Crédit Agricole Public Sector SCF’s new €10bn Obligations Foncières (OF) programme. Standard and Poor’s said the issuer is likely to bring a €1bn deal in September.

National Australia Bank sold a barely oversubscribed 14 year sterling covered bond on Wednesday, in a failed attempt to emulate the success of competitor Commonwealth Bank of Australia. CBA had sold a well oversubscribed benchmark in the same maturity just six days earlier.

OTP Mortgage Bank on Thursday launched the first euro covered bond from Hungary since November 2011, uncovering enough demand to increase a short dated floating rate trade.

The covered bond pipeline is steadily building with as many as five issuers preparing to pounce on the market once investors return from their summer breaks.

OTP Mortgage Bank on Thursday launched the first euro covered bond from Hungary since November 2011, uncovering enough demand to increase a short dated floating rated trade. Meanwhile, National Australia Bank’s recent 14 year sterling offering has widened in the secondary market, after demand proved lacklustre for its attempted long end benchmark.

Credito Emiliano has become the fifth Italian bank to set up a separate covered bond programme to access European Central Bank (ECB) repo funding. But bankers warn that these programmes could have a negative effect on issuers’ original public programmes, even though they help improve banks’ liquidity. This article has one comment.

OTP Mortgage Bank on Thursday opened books on a €500m 2-1/2 year floating rate covered bond through sole lead BNP Paribas, with guidance set at 400bp over three month Euribor.

Moody’s upgrade of Korea provided a welcome boost to covered bond issuers on Wednesday. Korea Housing Finance Corp’s two covered trades were raised as a result and Kookmin Bank’s could follow, with only weeks before domestic legislation is due to go before parliament.

Royal Bank of Canada could soon announce the mandate for the first SEC registered deal. The SEC approved RBC’s $12bn covered programme at the end of July but as the bank was about to enter blackout, its first SEC registered deal was not expected to surface until the end of August — subject to market conditions.