Euro

Covered bonds are a more important term funding tool than senior unsecured, because of bail-in concerns, Rolf Enderli, head of group treasury at Credit Suisse, told The Cover on Thursday. The issuer may follow Lloyds Bank and bolster subordinate funding by exchanging ECNs with regulatory compliant additional tier one debt, said bankers.

Eika Boligkreditt opened books on Wednesday for a €500m seven year covered bond that offered a spread not seen from Norway since January 2013, and one of the largest pick-ups from a core European issuer this year. But with a new issue premium of just 2bp, the funding was cheap for the borrower.

Credit Suisse enjoyed a stellar response for its second covered bond this year, enabling it to issue €1.75bn, the biggest such deal of 2014. Seemingly generous pricing and the issuer’s strong name spurred demand.

Last week Hypo Real Estate Holding said it would sell the Dublin based Depfa plc by June. However market participants do not think that will happen, if the tight prices of the defunct bank’s covered bonds are anything to go by. But the market is wrong to think Germany won’t sell up.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) returned to the covered bond market for the first time in over a year on Tuesday, with its newly restructured collateral pool, to issue a €1bn five year Obligations Foncières. The textbook syndication attracted a high quality book and, despite being tight to the issuer’s curve, offered good relative value, as well as benefitting from scarcity value given CFF’s long absence.

La Caisse Centrale Desjardins du Quebec (CCDQ) issued its inaugural legislative covered bond on Tuesday, but despite a high quality book, a seemingly attractive spread and a two week hiatus in term benchmark covered bond supply, the issuer could only muster a modest oversubscription.

Key European investors have asked bookrunners on Caisse Centrale Desjardins du Quebec’s (CCDQ) debut euro covered bond for extra time to get credit lines in place. The Canadian bank will print early next week.

Ratings dominated the covered bond market on Tuesday as several Spanish deals were upgraded, while Austria’s Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank’s covered bonds were downgraded. A number of core issuers are monitoring the market, but are not yet ready to the pay the new issue premiums being demanded.

LBBW returned to the covered bond market on Monday to issue a €500m 15 month deal from a €550m book. The exceptionally short dated funding was driven by asset liability matching needs and provided cheaper funding than the issuer could have found in the money markets.

Bayerishe Landesbank’s covered bonds were unaffected on Friday by news on the wind down of Austria’s Hypo Alpe-Adria (HAA), which it partially owns. However, other Austrian covered bonds widened a few basis points after Austria’s finance Michael Spindelegger warned that unsecured bondholders might need to share in the bank’s losses.

Demand was still clearly skewed to the higher yielding peripheral markets on Friday, especially for second tier Italian banks, which offer double the spread of multi-Cédulas. And if peripheral spreads continue to tighten, the newly enacted Italian Obbligazioni Bancarie Collateralizzate, or Italian SME backed covered bonds, might eventually attract interest. But only when secondary legislation has been formulated and come into force which will take time.

Credito Emiliano’s €750m five year has earned praise for its tight pricing, but it was demand from outside the eurozone, including from Asia and Switzerland, that suggests Italy’s recovery story is gaining traction.