The Gulf’s banks get ready for recession

The central group of bond issuers in the Middle East are the banks. They are well capitalised, with clean balance sheets and often high credit ratings. But none has come to the market since the war began at the end of February.

With fighting raging and a recession predicted, banks’ secondary spreads have widened, especially on the large quantities of subordinated capital they have issued.

That is manageable, and the banks can stay out of the market for a while. But at some point they will need to return — assuming they stick to their word and call capital bonds at the first opportunity.

Where are the safe haven assets? US Treasuries and Bunds are the obvious ones, but the war has made them sell off too, as investors price in rate rises. One market that has stayed remarkably resilient is non-sovereign public sector bonds.

Despite all the noise, investors and issuers have remained calm throughout March, continuing to do deals at sensible spreads — and April could be busy.

Covered bonds rely on a web of regulation — not just the laws that establish them in many countries, but rules governing how much capital banks have to hold against them and how they can use them for repo funding.

Several major regulatory changes are in the works at once, including on risk weightings, cross-border equivalence and blockchain. And the industry has an idea of its own — a pan-European mortgage guarantee.