LBBW

HSBC Germany has launched a digital platform for Schuldschein issuance called Synd-X, following in the footsteps of Helaba and LBBW. But unlike its German peers, it aims to preserve the role of banks as gatekeepers to the market.

LBBW’s debut green Pfandbrief attracted a larger order book from a wider set of international investors compared with a vanilla deal, suggesting the bonds have good scope to perform relative to ordinary deals.

LBBW has mandated leads for its first Pfandbrief secured on green mortgages. The transaction follows a similar deal last week from DNB Boligkreditt and comes after LBBW’s inaugural green senior deal launched in December 2017. Several other covered bonds are expected next week.

Bank of China’s Luxembourg branch has signed a $1.05bn syndicated loan after launching the deal at half that amount in the latest display of lenders scrambling to allocate funds.

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LBBW and the Stuttgart Stock Exchange have created a Schuldschein digital technology platform called Debtvision, with all the grand ambition and fanfare that Helaba exhibited when launching its rival VC Trade system in March. Whether the town is big enough for the both of them remains to be seen.

The Federal State of Berlin printed a 15 year trade on Wednesday — its first €1bn bond since 2015, according to Dealogic. The trade was joined by a five year from Corporación Andina de Fomento.

German screws and fastenings wholesaler Würth this week found its domestic investor base had stayed loyal after a three year hiatus from the corporate bond market. However, it also found material offshore interest too.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB), which completed its second euro benchmark Pfandbrief of the year this week, is expected to consider issuance in dollars or sterling, as are other German issuers that have big foreign currency assets.

Pfandbrief borrowers rarely issue sterling deals of more than £250m, so when LBBW priced a £750m transaction with demand of £1.4bn this week, alarm bells were ringing. The astounding wall of money chasing the safest of safe assets may say as much about the state of the market as it does about the value of the deal itself.

At £750m, the debut sterling covered bond issued by LBBW on Wednesday was by far the largest ever of its kind sold by a European bank, with the trade attracting demand that was off the scale compared with anything that had previously been issued in the currency.

The European Financial Stability Facility attracted a heavily oversubscribed book for a deal on Tuesday and was able to tighten its pricing considerably, but onlooking bankers did not seem taken by the supranational’s strategy.