Europe

Fitch cut mortgage covered bonds issued by Caja Madrid from AAA to AA+ on Friday and noted that the rating of Cédulas TDA 14, which is under review, is heavily exposed to Caja Madrid’s cédulas hipotecarias.

Spain’s Bankinter will today (Monday) add Eu400m to a Eu1bn cédulas hipotecarias issue first launched in March and will price the increase at a record high spread.

Moody’s last Friday downgraded Asset Covered Securities issued by Depfa ACS Bank from Aa2 to Aa3 because of a downgrade in the issuer’s rating from A2 to A3.

Lettres de gage publiques issued by NordLB Covered Finance Bank have been rated by a second rating agency, with Fitch on Friday assigning them a AAA rating.

Fitch yesterday (Thursday) placed Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa’s rating of A+ on Rating Watch Negative because of the announced acquisition the assets and liabilities of CajaSur, which was taken over by the Fund For Orderly Bank Restructuring at the behest of the Bank of Spain in May.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Thursday) downgraded mortgage covered bonds issued by Banco BPI by four notches, from AAA to A+.

Fitch yesterday (Thursday) downgraded Caja Madrid’s rating from A+ to A, on negative outlook, because of revenue pressure and a decline in asset quality.

Toronto-Dominion launched a $2bn five year inaugural covered bond yesterday (Thursday), becoming the fifth Canadian bank to tap the dollar market with a covered bond this year. Compagnie de Financement Foncier today launched the fourth euro tap of the week, increasing its recent 15 year deal by Eu450m.

Fitch downgraded five Portuguese banks, including Banco Comercial Português, Banco Espírito Santo and Banco BPI yesterday (Thursday), because it considers them to have limited funding sources and a reduced ability to raise medium term funding.

Moody’s yesterday (Wednesday) cut Ireland’s EBS Building Society from A2 to A3, on stable outlook, after having on Monday downgraded the sovereign by one notch.

Standard & Poor’s has, under its revised rating methodology, downgraded covered bonds issued by Bradford & Bingley from AAA to AA, on stable outlook, because of a high proportion of buy-to-let loans in the cover pool.

Moody’s put all ratings of Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa on review for downgrade today (Wednesday) because of its proposed acquisition of Cajasur, which was taken over by Spain’s Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB) in May.