Italy

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank tapped a recent floating rate mortgage backed covered bond for €150m on Wednesday, although fresh benchmark deals are unlikely in the wake of Italy’s election, said debt bankers. They fear the surge in volatility could close the issuance window for weeks. However, other bankers countered that strong core names would have no trouble bringing transactions.

Covered bond bankers are still hoping for deals this week, despite uncertainties over the quality of order books in recent deals. Meanwhile, the market is waiting for the Italian election results and watching for any delayed reaction to the UK’s rating downgrade.

A multi OBG deal from Italy’s state owned public financing institution Cassa Depositi e Prestiti now looks unlikely, bankers told The Cover on Friday. CDP is expected to decide by the end of this month whether and how to proceed with plans to funnel long term funding to Italy’s smaller banks, which are currently locked out of the markets. A multi issuer Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite had been touted in the market this week, but industry officials on Friday said this was the least likely option, given the costs involved.

Wednesday’s sterling deal from Bayerische Landesbank came as welcome relief to supply starved investors but the paucity of supply has also been particularly marked in the euro market, where issuance volumes are half of last year’s shrunken levels. The technical mismatch is helping to spur demand in the secondary market where Spanish deals are once again in vogue.

The ABS and covered bond worlds have come closer together after Fitch had to explain its rating methodology for Commerzbank's SME structured covered bond programme. The rating agency will apply covered bond criteria to the pioneering programme, even though the bonds will have ABS like features. The news follows an upgrade of Banca delle Marche’s covered bonds after they were cross-fertilised with structured finance technology.

UniCredit put on a demonstration of the New Year’s appetite for risk on Monday morning when it priced a €1bn seven year covered bond from a €6.5bn book. Demand for the deal has been granular with the pricing, at 150bp over mid-swaps, being 90bp through the government curve.

Italy’s covered bond market will tread water in 2013 in terms of outstanding bonds, say analysts. Issuers remain at the mercy of their sovereign story and a tricky general election is due in the first quarter, but supply could surge if the outlook improves.

Intesa Sanpaolo’s €1.25bn 10 year OBG has underscored enormous appetite for risk and has sparked debate over whether the funding door might be open for other smaller issuers from Europe’s periphery and particularly from Italy. However, it seems borrowers that could do deals would rather wait and see.

Intesa Sanpaolo has succumbed to perennial investor demand for long dated peripheral issuance from a national champion and issued a €1.25bn 10 year bond. Though the funding margin is slightly negative, it is much better than even three months ago. More importantly, the deal is remarkable for its long duration.

Banca Monte Dei Paschi di Siena’s secondary covered bond spreads are holding firm following another downgrade, but Spanish spreads are weakening after their recent rally. Peripheral borrowers could still bring successful benchmarks, but compression between covered and senior levels means there is less incentive to use valuable collateral, syndicate bankers told The Cover.

The increase in retained issuance will have a lasting impact on the primary covered bond market and could reduce benchmark supply to ‘showcase transactions’, Barclays analysts warn.

Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on another pair of Cédulas programmes this week, but the stellar result for Bankinter and UniCredit showed single-A rated trades can still find a stampeding demand. UK buyers bought more than expected in both deals, as syndicate leads pointed to a new class of accounts that could support peripheral transactions.