Italy

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Wednesday) downgraded the rating of UniCredit SpA from A+ to A, and revised the outlook from negative to stable. The ratings of several related entities were also cut by one notch.

Fitch will be speaking to Italian covered bond and residential mortgage backed securities issuers to find out how payment holidays for mortgage borrowers envisaged under the country’s “Tremonti” decree will affect their programmes.

In brief: Banca Carige has executed a Eu500m covered bond off a Eu5bn programme that was signed last Thursday (4 December), which is believed to be its first deal.

Rating action: Fitch on Friday upgraded UBI Banca’s rating from A to A+.

Italy’s Banca Carige signed a Eu5bn covered bond programme yesterday (Thursday).

UniCredit has put the final touches to its Eu20bn Italian covered bond programme and executed its first issues. While these have been retained, the bank is now ready to issue publicly when the market reopens.

Panellists at the Opportunities in the Italian Funding Market conference in Rome on Monday pointed out that Italian banks looking to issue covered bonds still need to be patient, even if the market has at long last been opened.

Intesa Sanpaolo yesterday (Monday) launched a Eu8bn residential mortgage backed securitisation of which the Eu7.558bn class ‘A’ notes will be used by the bank as collateral for its covered bond programme, which it expects to launch in the coming months.

After Banca Popolare Milano brought the first obbligazioni bancarie garantite to market, The Cover spoke to Enzo Chiesa, chief financial officer at BPM, about how one of Italy’s regional players came to end the long wait for Italian covered bonds.

Banco Espírito Santo opened books on a new short dated mortgage backed transaction this (Wednesday) morning, apparently refuting suggestions that conditions had turned against a second new benchmark this week. Bankers with outstanding mandates from Italy and Portugal admitted that this turn of events could cause them to readjust their plans, but only if the issuance window can be held open in the face of pressure from the wider financial markets.

Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) yesterday (Monday) priced the first Eu1bn covered bond since Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo’s two year in mid-June. However, market participants said that today’s plummeting equity markets had sunk any hopes of a meaningful recovery.

Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) took the plunge before the summer break this morning, opening books on it debut euro benchmark covered bond, the first from Italy. One syndicate manager outside the deal welcomed it for establishing Italy where it belonged in his view, although disconcertingly for fans of orthodox geography he suggested this was somewhere between France and Portugal.