Currencies

Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen issued a four year mortgage backed Pfandbrief on Wednesday, meeting its targets for size and spread. Bankers were hopeful that more covered bonds would emerge on Thursday, as conditions were good for both core and peripheral names.

Credit Foncier de France is out with its second RMBS of the year. CFHL-2 2015 may not come with the special regulatory treatment of the issuer’s covered bonds, but the deal offers a spread that looks particularly alluring for the risk. A major investor of covered bonds and securitizations said RMBS offer far better risk return than covered bonds, and chastised fellow investors for their lazy approach to assessing credit risk.

Following successful deals from Berlin Hyp on Tuesday and Helaba on Wednesday, two more German issuers have mandated leads. WL Bank and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (Pbb) are expected to open books on Thursday, respectively for five and seven year benchmarks.

Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna’s (BPER) and Banco Popular Español’s (BPE) five year bonds enjoyed equally good receptions, even though BPER’s Italian covered bond came at half the spread and with a much lower rating than BPE’s Spanish deal.

Berlin Hyp (BHH) priced a €500m three year Pfandbrief on Tuesday, of which nearly half was sold to international investors. The broad distribution, which came as a positive surprise, suggests an overriding investor need to shorten duration, which in turn implies fear of further volatility this year.

Reforms in China's foreign exchange system and capital account will see the renminbi take on a greater role in the global economy, leading to an "inevitable" inclusion of the currency in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), HSBC said in a July 20 report.

Banco Popular Espanol has mandated leads for a long five year Cedulas benchmark, the second from Spain in that maturity this year.

Covered bond issuers have provided more than €7bn of supply this week after a moribund spell, proving themselves to be more nimble and opportunistic than perhaps ever before.

Time is up for the covered bond lemmings. They’ve had it too easy for too long. Gone are the days of pricing a covered bond exactly where your neighbour wished they had printed theirs. Issuers need to be nimble and bankers insightful.

UniCredit Bank AG (HVB) proved that investor appetite for duration is returning on Friday when it took a €2.2bn book for its eight year €500m Pfandbrief. Only two other issuers have printed this rare tenor in 2015.

Bank of Nova Scotia, the third Canadian institution to issue a covered bond this week, took €1.25bn with its five year covered bond on Thursday. While the books were slightly slower to build than market rivals BPCE and Commerzbank, the result was still a strong one for the issuer.

Greek parliament gave bankers the result they were hoping for on Wednesday night, providing strong market conditions for two well established eurozone issuers — Commerzbank and BPCE — to issue five year bonds, taking a combined €1bn in the covered bond market. Sizable orderbooks and minimal new issue premiums proved that the market is very much in full operating mode.