Germany

The coronavirus crisis may have hit overall covered bond supply prospects, but it has provided a silver lining for some banks — such as Credit Suisse, ING and Commerzbank which have all fared well in the covered bond league tables this year.

Angus Whelchel, who was global head of private capital markets and a managing director at Barclays, has left the bank, according to market sources.

Berlin Hyp has launched tender offers on four of its euro covered bonds in an effort to optimise its funding costs and provide liquidity to investors. The issuer also plans a new long dated covered bond.

Rating agency Scope beat many European agencies to the punch in adopting new covered bond rating methodology in 2015, which is today considered a standard approach. But the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) is fining the agency on the grounds that it failed to apply it consistently and with the regulator’s permission.

Two foreign issuers and a red-chip company tapped China’s onshore renminbi bond market this week, taking home Rmb6.2bn ($875m). Two more red-chip borrowers are waiting in the wings, with their deals slated for next week.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Deutsche Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group this week sourced environmental, social and governance senior funding in euros, amid a shortage of supply in the format.

Rating: A3/A-/BBB

Several market players have said family offices in need of cash are struggling to come to terms with restrictions on companies that have taken state aid to survive the coronavirus pandemic paying dividends. This has made other forms of debt, such as Schuldscheine, with no bans on dividend payments, more attractive.

Barry Callebaut, the Franco-Belgian chocolate maker now registered in Switzerland, launched a Schuldschein on Tuesday offering investors tenors "upon request" alongside two, five and eight year maturities. Robert Bosch did that too, when it reopened the market last month. This is a feature that arrangers say will increase in a post Covid world.

Germany is set to announce extra fiscal stimulus next week, a portion of which will be dealt with at regional level. But one state treasury official does not believe it will affect his Land's borrowing programme.

Deutsche Bank was on target to launch its first ever green bond on Tuesday. Investors were piling into the deal, which was said to have included a healthy premium at the outset.

Deutsche Hypo took advantage of the public Pfandbrief market before the coronavirus crisis struck and since then has been busy issuing privately placed senior deals. Spreads have since tightened, which should help issuance bounce back. But ready access to favourable European Central Bank repo funding means supply will be restricted. Some parts of the German commercial real estate market are likely to be facing trouble too, but even so, Pfandbrief investors are well protected.