For the last couple of years Nationwide has largely been in the business of capital raising, with the Prudential Regulation Authority in the summer of 2013 having said the lender was 1% short of its 3% leverage ratio target.
That capital drive also resulted in a pioneering £500m issue of core capital deferred shares — a new equity-like instrument, the holders of which have no voting rights — in November 2013.
But the 168 year old mutual has recently made clear its intention to return to each of its four core funding markets — senior unsecured, covered bonds, US MTNs and RMBS — on a more regular basis than in the last few years.
Nationwide has brought its Silverstone Master Issuer RMBS programme to Las Vegas, and SMI 2015-1 is expected to offer three and five year AAA/Aaa/AAA rated multi-currency floating rate notes in Reg S/144A format.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi and Deutsche Bank have been mandated as lead managers for the deal. It is Nationwide’s first since March 2012, when the majority of notes were sold in dollars.
The master trust property consists of prime residential owner-occupied mortgage loans originated in the UK by Nationwide Building Society or by another member of the Nationwide group, according to a Fitch ratings report. It was valued at around £15.6bn at the end of 2014.
The portfolio consists of 22.2% fast-track loans. Fitch typically increases its default probability for fast-track loans, due to non-verified income. However, Nationwide's arrears performance data shows fast-track loans generally performed better than non-fast-track loans, the ratings agency said.
Motor revs up
They will be discussing what would be the fourth dual sterling and dollar offering of auto ABS from its Motor programme in as many years.
The lead managers are expecting to launch and price Motor 2015-1 in the week of February 16.
The deal will follow the UK lender’s $1bn Motor 2013-1 and $1.375bn Motor 2014-1 in offering US investors both sterling and dollar notes in 144A format.
The scale of demand for Santander’s debut 144A deal in 2012 appeared to open the door for European issuers to tap into a much deeper US investor base. But while Santander has printed a deal a year since then, the rush to bring other asset classes from Europe to dollars has not been as strong as some had anticipated.
The issuer left an impression with the size of Motor 2014-1, which featured $750m of triple-A 1.13 year ‘A1’ notes at 48bp over one month Libor and £375m of triple-A 1.66 year ‘A2’ notes at 50bp over the same benchmark in April last year.
Motor 2012-1 included $445m of dollar bonds, and Motor 2013-1 only saw an incremental increase to $450m.
Announcing a series of meetings for ABS Vegas, which finishes on February 11, and plans to sell the deal a week later, would suggest Santander is looking for an equally eye-catching deal this time around.