Covered Bonds

The financial institutions market today (Tuesday) burst into action with three guaranteed deals and one unguaranteed, after the quiet start to the week yesterday. And there is already speculation about the next mandate from Spain.

We are publishing our first league table for 2009 today (Monday), after the first jumbo Pfandbriefe since August 2008 last week gave volumes significant, if not critical mass. Only a handful of issuers have launched benchmarks, but supply including taps of more than Eu6bn is already greater than some analysts’ expectations for the first quarter or even half of the year.

Fitch on Friday affirmed the AAA rating of Anglo Irish’s commercial mortgage covered bonds issued in the UK after making an exception to the criteria it usually applies to a bank that fails to meet the minimum swap counterparty ratings for top rated covered bonds.

The week’s activity has started slowly today (Monday), with no concrete deals in the market, although NIBC has mandated its second government-guaranteed deal and is expected soon. Meanwhile covered bond market participants are still digesting the reopening of jumbo Pfandbriefe last week.

BNP Paribas is setting up a Eu15bn public sector obligations foncières programme that will run alongside the BNP Paribas Covered Bonds programme that was set up outside France’s dedicated legal framework.

Dexia Crédit Local made an impressive debut in the government guaranteed market this week, pricing the first severally but not jointly government guaranteed (GG) transaction to date.

Fitch and Standard & Poor's have downgraded Danske Bank, citing the economic downturn in many of the countries in which the Denmark-based bank operates.

Postbank yesterday (Thursday) made its comeback to the jumbo Pfandbrief market, just one day after LBBW reignited the market with a Eu1bn five year public-sector jumbo.

Standard & Poor's and Moody’s have delivered verdicts on Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken with rating actions.