Covered Bonds

After 28 years in banking Philipp Waldstein Wartenberg, head of group strategic funding and portfolio at UniCredit in Milan, is moving to the investor side, joining MEAG from the start of next year.

Bayerische Landesbank (Bayern LB) launched its first euro benchmark covered bond in over a year on Wednesday, bringing a 10 year public sector backed Pfandbrief originally mandated in July 2011. The trade prioritised pricing over size and received less interest than recent German deals. At the less traditional end of the covered spectrum, Nykredit Realkredit opened books on a tap of a recently issued junior covered bond.

Crédit Agricole CIB’s Bruce Cairnduff is relocating to Hong Kong as head of debt capital markets for Asia, including Japan, in a move that underscores the firm’s desire to strengthen its presence in Asia.

The senior market took centre stage again on Tuesday, dissuading covered issuers from competing with another trio of unsecured trades after Westpac’s slow bookbuild on Monday. The Australian issuer closed the spread gap with its Nordic peers, but found demand lacklustre compared with earlier Australian benchmarks.

For the 2012 awards The Cover has changed the voting process. Lead managers and issuers will need to submit pitches for the awards they wish to be shortlisted for. Please submit pitches of no more than 250 words before 5pm, Thursday July 19.

Moody's could downgrade Abbey National’s covered bonds from triple-A after putting them under review. The move comes amid wider concerns over the swaps in the covered bond programmes of banks whose senior ratings were recently downgraded to A3.

Former Société Générale covered bond analyst, Jose Sarafana, on Monday began a new job in credit sales at Aurel-BGC in Paris. Jean-David Cirotteau has taken on his former responsibilities at SG.

Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp returned to the euro market to launch the jurisdiction’s first seven year covered bond on Monday. But a trio of competing senior unsecured trades contributed to a slow book build, said syndicate bankers, with some also suggesting guidance had been set too tight.

Standard & Poor's has rated a Cédulas Hipotecárias programme for Deutsche Bank, giving it the highest possible Cédulas rating in the country. But, despite their unusual nature of the bonds they will not be publically distributed. In an environment where jurisdiction trumps almost everything, the five bonds that have already been issued off the programme will be retained for funding with the ECB.

Finnish prime minister, Jyrki Katainen, has suggested that Spain and Italy could use covered bonds backed by state assets or tax revenue to ease their funding needs. Covered bond analysts initially suggested the bonds would be issued through the respective banking sectors. But if the bonds are sold or auctioned directly by the sovereign, the covered bond label will not be applicable, they said.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (Pbb) on Wednesday priced a €500m mortgage backed Pfandbrief flat to its curve for the second time in just over a month. The issuer said it plans to launch at least one more euro benchmark after the summer break, and could bring jumbo deals in the future.

Investors are increasingly fretting over their Cédulas exposure following a round of Spanish bank and bond downgrades this week.