ABN Amro

Syndicate bankers are scrambling to make sense of the covered bond market, where sentiment has been changeable in recent weeks. Amid volatility and small issuance windows, sustainable bonds have proven a safe strategy to ensure successful deals.

Berlin Hyp left ‘a little bit on the table’ with its new green covered bond on Tuesday. The trade was followed by deal announcements from Kookmin Bank and Sparebank Vest Boligkreditt, both looking to issue in sustainable format.

NN Bank unveiled plans on Monday to issue its first covered bond from its newly published soft-bullet programme. At the same time, Berlin Hyp has mandated lead managers for the sale of a new green covered bond.

Hannover Re gave away a bit of premium for a new tier two this week, after it touched on the lower bound of the spreads available in the market for insurance capital.

The Dutch part of Air France KLM has taken a €3.4bn bailout package from the Dutch government, which some analysts said includes the possibility for the state to increase its holding in the entire group.

Lenders to Wirecard, the embattled German payments company, will have to decide whether to call in its €1.75bn syndicated loan, after its auditor EY refused to sign off its 2019 accounts, which the company announced on Thursday, sending its share price into a spiral. Markus Braun, the company's CEO, resigned on Friday.

Five banks and insurers from across Europe issued senior debt this week, including two in green bond format, as they tried to find opportunities in a choppy market. Athene Global Funding, Banco de Sabadell, Virgin Money, Santander and Hypo Noe all priced deals.

Green bonds made up the majority of the supply in the euro bank bond market on Thursday, with Hypo Noe and Santander capitalising on strong demand for the asset class.

European banks joined a flurry of US corporates in the dollar bond market this week, capitalising on favourable conditions to issue deals in large sizes and at negative new issue premiums.

Banco de Sabadell proved very popular with a short-dated euro senior deal this week, after issuing in an unusual three year non-call two maturity structure.

AIB Group priced a €625m additional tier one (AT1) bond in euros this week, following several volatile days of trading for the asset class. The deal surpassed expectations in terms of size and pricing, having been run along with a tender offer for one of the Irish lender’s existing AT1s.

Sentiment is deteriorating in the financial institutions bond market amid fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections. Issuers are now expected to take a back seat until credit spreads show more signs of stability.