Currencies

Axa Bank Europe SCF launched its third and largest euro benchmark covered bond on Tuesday, pricing a €1bn trade at the tight end of guidance. Investors seemed untroubled by the rare RMBS collateral, allowing Axa to follow recent French trades in offering a minimal new issue concession.

The covered bond market is primed for supply, with syndicate bankers expecting several trades this week and at least one announcement to hit screens this Monday afternoon. Though mandates are otherwise scarce, the range of products and currencies available to issuers means they can afford to launch at short notice, and keep their options open.

Moody’s provided a timely reminder that all is not right in the state of Spain on Monday. Following a 41% year-on-year decline in mortgage lending, over-collateralisation levels have eroded, it said. The news came against a background of Cédulas selling as concerns mounted for the country’s banking sector, with non-performing loans soaring and house price falls accelerating.

Investors are fed up with focusing too much on the strength of issuing banks to value covered bonds. Now they are demanding more details about the underlying assets. But baring all is not necessarily the solution for borrowers either.

Hong Kong-listed New World China Land included a novel feature on its debut in the offshore renminbi bond market, adding a letter of support from its parent, New World Development, to give extra comfort to investors in the high yield issue.

HSH Nordbank made a strong return to covered bonds on Thursday, drawing such strong demand — over 100 accounts participated in the €500m no-grow trade — that leads closed books after only 35 minutes.

Standard and Poor’s brutal six notch downgrade of the Depfa ACS public sector backed covered bonds, from double A to triple B, matches the severity of downgrades that have been seen in several Spanish multi-Cédulas deals. But unlike those deals, this deal was issued by the Irish entity of a German parent bank.

Chailease Finance launched its debut transaction in the dim sum bond market on Tuesday, becoming the first issuer from Taiwan to launch an offshore renminbi deal this year. French bank Société Générale is also planning to add to the selection of the credits in the market, and is now plotting its own deal.

Dollar issuance continued its record breaking run on Tuesday, as UBS launched its second benchmark of 2012 in that currency. Sterling and dollars have had record first quarters, though euro supply remains subdued.

Ayala Land, the biggest developer in the Philippines, is approaching bond investors in its local market for as much as Ps15bn ($349m) of funding. The company is now pitching the deal to institutional accounts, but could soon bring in retail investors to help it exercise a greenshoe.

Covered bond spreads stabilised on Monday and bids have gingerly returned after last week’s sell-off. Turnover has been relatively low but spreads in core markets have renewed their tightening trend – though peripheral markets are lagging. In the primary market, the newly restructured HSH Nordbank is on the road until Wednesday and may thereafter decide to bring a €500m Pfandbrief, subject to market conditions.

WL Bank priced its first deal since May last year and the first 10 year Pfandbrief of the year. Despite coming at a tight spread, relative to other covered bond sectors, it sold out within an hour and was heavily oversubscribed.