France

Covered bond issuers from outside the Eurozone launched deals this week denominated in sterling and Australian dollars. But a bigger proportion were from the Eurozone where borrowers launched deals in the single currency in maturities that ranged from four to 20 years. The transaction were priced generously and enjoyed a solid reception, with central banks taking a back seat.

Bank of Montreal (BMO) and Caisse Française de Financement Local (Caffil) respectively issued one of the shortest and longest covered bonds of 2015. BMO’s five year appealed to a wide audience enabling the borrower to issue a large €1.5bn deal. Though Caffil’s €500m 20 year appealed to a smaller audience, the very high quality investor base it appeals to bodes well for the deal’s long term performance.

The European covered bond market kept up its momentum on Tuesday as four euro-denominated deals hit the screens and books were opened on another denominated in Australian dollars. The euro deals all offered a new issue concession of around 5bp and were comfortably oversubscribed.

The European covered bond market got off to an exceptionally strong start on Monday as LBBW, Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) and BBVA launched euro benchmarks across a range of maturities, without a hiccough. The strong start bodes well for Tuesday when several more euro benchmarks including Bank of Ireland and BPER are due.

Obligations Fonciére issued by Compagnie de Financement Fonciere and CIF Euromortage were downgraded one notch by Fitch this week following the rating agency’s downgrade of France’s long term rating to AA from AA+.

Crédit Agricole priced the year’s largest deal from a European financial issuer in samurai format on Thursday, raising a total of ¥135.5bn ($1.15bn) from a four-tranche, fixed-floating rate transaction.

Publicis Groupe’s $3.5bn loan for acquisition of Sapient will have 10 relationship banks, led by Citigroup. Some banks with which Publicis previously had a banking relationship with are missing from the list.

Crédit Agricole returned to the covered bond market for the first time this year to issue a €1bn eight year. Demand as fair, but less spectacular than deals seen two weeks ago, as the agency and sovereign sector now offer better value. Leads stressed the quality of real money interest, a large portion of which is likely to have been from the Banque de France.

The covered bond market has started to lose some of the energy and excitement that followed the announcement of the European Central Bank’s purchase programme. As the bid for Santander’s Cédulas widened the day after launch on Thursday, BPCE issued a finely tuned deal that was sized closely to demand.

The European Central Bank's covered bond purchase programme (CBPP3) turned relative value upside down this week, with a French deal pricing inside a similar Swedish offering, among a crop of four new issues.

BNP Paribas became the first issuer to print a French sub-Euribor ten year on Tuesday, hot on the heels of Monday’s sub-Euribor seven year from CFF. Europe’s second largest bank skipped initial price thoughts on the triple-A deal and had the syndication wrapped up by 10:30 CET.

On Tuesday Unione di Banche Italiane (UBI Banca) priced a €1bn ten year deal a full 10bp through where its outstanding ten year print from January was trading the previous day. The spread came sharply tighter through the execution process, helped by an early order from the ECB.