Covered Bonds

France’s Crédit Mutuel Arkéa yesterday (Monday) started a two week roadshow for a Eu10bn covered bond programme. Meanwhile, a European Central Bank governing council member said that there have been “no changes” to the covered bond purchase programme.

Standard & Poor’s has said that a covered bond bill introduced in the House of Representatives in March addresses an important aspect of its rating methodology, but would not necessarily improve the position of US covered bonds within its key country categorisation.

The Norwegian Covered Bond Council, which was established in January, aims to enhance Norwegian covered bonds and promote them to domestic and foreign investors, according to Norwegian market participants.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Monday) upgraded WestLB Covered Bond Bank (CBB) from BBB+ to AA- and lifted its outlook from negative to stable, and changed the CreditWatch on the issuer’s covered bonds from negative to developing.

An unprecedented support package for the euro-zone of up to Eu720bn from the European Union and International Monetary Fund alongside a new, broad European Central Bank purchase programme sparked a sharp rally in credit markets today (Monday). The moves bring closer the prospect of a reopening of the covered bond market after more than two weeks without issuance, even if the relationship between the new ECB programme and its covered bond buying is unclear.

A bipartisan initiative to include covered bond legislation in the Senate’s financial regulatory reform bill is underway, according to a letter on Friday from Republican Congressmen who have been lobbying for the asset class in the House of Representatives.

Fitch downgraded three Greek mortgage covered bond programmes yesterday (Thursday), and left them on rating watch negative, due to severely impaired market funding sources for Greek assets.

Buying under the European Central Bank’s covered bond purchase programme (CBPP) slowed in April, although it took in a higher share of new issues during the month than in March. The ECB has also lent some of the covered bonds it holds in its CBPP portfolio.

Udo Schinz will be retiring from HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt at the end of June after some 35 years in the industry.

Standard & Poor’s has affirmed at AAA the ratings of mortgage covered bonds issued by Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank under its new rating criteria.

Berlin-Hannoversche Hypothekenbank’s Jan Bettink is expected to take over as president of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) in June when Henning Rasche is due to step down.

These charts and tables provide an overview of all benchmark covered bond issuance from January-April 2010, breaking down total supply by country and maturity, and comparing this year's volumes with those of previous months and years.