Covered Bond Awards

In a year which has seen the overall market shrink, the one sector to really buck that trend is the market for green and ESG covered bonds. So, naturally it has been a focus of attention for covered bond bankers everywhere and the competition to be best bank for ESG issuers was more intense than ever. In the face of stiff opposition, it is Crédit Agricole CIB that took the laurels, adding to their already very impressive credentials in the sector.

Some things in life, like tax returns for example, aren’t exactly glamorous, but they have to be done as the downsides of getting them wrong are just too great. So, it is with maintaining existing covered bond programmes, in particular transitioning them to the new risk free rate benchmarks and managing their liability structures. When the downsides are big, banks need to be able to turn to an adviser that they trust and, according to GlobalCapital’s survey of market participants, this year that bank, the Best Bank for ALM and Libor Transition Management, is NatWest Markets.

On the face of it, with low issuance and the ECB hoovering up bonds as fast as it can, you’d say that selling covered bonds this year hasn’t been that tricky. But selling covered bonds well is a different matter entirely. Tight valuations, a lack of benchmark issuance and negative yields all make sales difficult, but at the same time they all make the information that a good sales team can deliver more important to the whole covered bond value chain. And it is something that LBBW, GlobalCapital’s Best Bank for Distribution has focused on more than ever.

To be voted the Best Bank for Covered Bond Research is an impressive achievement requiring a significant effort and investment of resources. But to repeatedly be voted the Best Bank – in nine of the last 11 years, as Crédit Agricole CIB has – requires more: not just effort and commitment but a willingness to adapt to the myriad changes in the market, and the way participants use research over the last 11 years.

The covered bond market has been a great place to be if you are an issuer in the last twelve months. But what of the investors? Nordea Investment Management (Nordea) has been able to navigate the negative interest rates, poor allocations and central bank led distortions, to generate strong returns and become GlobalCapital’s Covered Bond Investor of the Year.

Watch full coverage of this year's Covered Bond Awards

GlobalCapital invites market participants to submit nominations for this year’s Covered Bond Awards, which recognise excellence in the industry over the past year.

This year almost 400 people responded to the covered bond awards survey, including more than 50 issuers and 200 investors, who said they had bought well over €100bn covered bonds in the past year, with collective covered bond assets under management in excess of €800bn.

Deutsche Bank, €500m 0.05% November 2024 CPT structure

What does it take to excel as a covered bond syndicate manager in a period of market disruption?

Germany is the ancestral home of covered bonds, so it’s no surprise that to win an award for distribution, a dealer must be strong in the German market. But covered bonds are also Germany’s greatest export success story in the capital markets, so strength at home isn’t enough — a dealer must also have a deep reach into the large community of institutional asset managers across Europe and Asia as well as into official institutions across the globe that are investing in the asset class.