Europe

Hypo Noe has mandated leads for its inaugural mortgage backed Pfandbrief, to be launched next week.

Credit Suisse mandated leads for a euro benchmark on Wednesday. After roadshowing earlier this week, Santander UK’s subsidiary Abbey has held back from the market following the tragic news that the banking group’s executive chairman passed away on Tuesday.

Aareal Bank capitalised on the momentum created by the two successful French deals issued through mid-swaps on Monday and Tuesday by bringing forward plans to issue a euro-denominated covered bond, opening books on a three year deal on Wednesday rather than waiting until next week.

The covered bond market passed another milestone this week with core transactions attracting book sizes that were reminiscent of the yieldy peripheral deals seen a year ago, but at spreads well through swaps. With supply likely to slow after September, the European Central Bank ready to absorb a large portion of whatever is subsequently issued and sovereign yields expected to head further into negative territory, the technical squeeze will become much tighter.

The frenzy of demand for Compagnie de Financement Foncier’s (CFF) five year deal on Tuesday demonstrated that the market’s psychological resistance to sub-Euribor pricing has well and truly crumbled.

The sterling FRN market picked up on Monday as Barclays was set to price the largest ever covered bond in the domestic currency and Danske Bank was poised to price a benchmark. The two borrowers follow Nordea Eiendomskreditt which attracted robust demand last week.

Jens Tolckmitt, chief executive of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) speaks to The Cover about Pfandbrief quality — "striving to be first in class".

Nordea Eiendomskreditt has priced its first sterling covered bond backed by Norwegian residential loans. The £500m three year floater appealed to investors on a number of counts and provided competitive funding for the issuer.

German banks and their covered bonds are unlikely to be affected by volatility in house prices according to a report published by Standard & Poor's on Wednesday. A 20% decline in prices would barely change the amount of collateral needed to get a top rating.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) reopened the covered bond primary market with a storm on Tuesday, printing one of the most oversubscribed German deals this year. The book featured a high proportion of international demand for a Pfandbrief, and one of the highest levels of central bank participation on record for a German deal.

Caixabank announced on Sunday that it had bought the Spanish operations of Barclays, subject to regulatory approval. The Cédulas cover pools are likely to be merged, but with the risk metrics of both being fairly similar, the rating impact should be neutral, said Credit Agricole analysts on Monday.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has mandated leads for a three year Pfandbrief.