Greece

Fitch today (Wednesday) affirmed the ratings of covered bonds issued under 17 programmes following implementation of the rating agency’s new refinancing cost assumptions. The AAA rating of Marfin Egnatia Bank’s covered bonds was affirmed separately yesterday (Tuesday) as the structure of the rating has changed.

A Eu1bn five year cédulas hipotecarias for Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria priced at the wide end of guidance could signal a welcome leveling of the balance of power between investors and issuers in the covered bond market, according to one banker this (Wednesday) morning. Meanwhile Danske is in the market with a new issue, National Bank of Greece has completed the first Greek benchmark, and we include here a wrap-up of some distribution statistics from earlier in the week. [Updated to correct BBVA pricing.]

National Bank of Greece will price the first Greek covered bond benchmark tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, a Eu1.5bn seven year issue at 90bp over mid-swaps.

Barclays Bank will tomorrow (Tuesday) launch the first benchmark UK covered bond since November 2007 and the first since the Regulated Covered Bond regime came into effect, a 10 year deal that is expected to be at least Eu2bn and at price talk tighter than that heard last week. The deal will hit another frenzied week for covered bonds, with at least two further issues likely in the coming days on top of three today (Monday), and more new names in the pipeline.

Moody’s yesterday (Wednesday) changed the outlook on Marfin Egnatia Bank’s Baa1 senior debt rating from stable to positive, but downgraded its bank financial strength rating from D+ to D, on stable outlook.

National Bank of Greece has joined the new issue pipeline after awarding the mandate for its inaugural benchmark covered bond. UBI Banca’s debut issue will probably be launched tomorrow (Tuesday), if a technical issue is resolved in time, according to syndicate officials at the leads.

All but one of the issuers whose covered bond programmes’ ratings could have been affected by Moody’s new refinancing margins have acted to stave off any downgrades of their programmes. The exception was Marfin Egnatia Bank, whose covered bonds were cut from Aaa to Aa1. The issuer spoke to The Cover about why it chose to sustain the one notch downgrade.

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Marfin Egnatia Bank from BBB to BBB-, and changed the outlook on two other Greek covered bond issuers from stable to negative.

Greece’s covered bond legislation was recently amended to give banks a third issuance structure option in addition to two that have already been used.

Fitch on Friday lowered its outlook on Alpha Bank and National Bank of Greece from stable to negative.

Moody’s yesterday (Tuesday) downgraded Alpha Bank’s rating from A1 to A2, with a negative outlook.

Moody’s yesterday (Tuesday) upgraded Marfin Egnatia Bank’s rating to match that of its parent bank, Marfin Popular Bank.