Nordics

Standard & Poor’s, under its revised covered bond rating methodology, on Friday affirmed at AAA and removed from negative review mortgage bonds and covered bonds issued by Realkredit Danmark. Six programmes remain on review under S&P’s updated methodology.

In brief: Stadshypotek, a subsidiary of Svenska Handelsbanken, is in the 144A market with a debut dollar benchmark.

A 10 day auction by Denmark’s Nykredit to refinance adjustable rate mortgages resulted in the sale of Dkr44.3bn (Eu5.95bn) covered bonds and historically low interest rates for retail borrowers, according to the mortgage bank.

SNS Bank will today (Tuesday) price the second long dated Dutch benchmark covered bond in a week, while Banco Popular Español has set the spreads for an exchange that is open until Friday and a Swedish covered bond issuer has set up a US MTN programme.

Denmark’s Nykredit will tomorrow (Friday) begin a September round of auctions to refinance adjustable rate covered bonds maturing in October, and although volumes are higher than in previous years the supply is expected to be well absorbed.

ING Bank and Terra BoligKreditt reopened the covered bond market for jumbo and sub-jumbo issuance, respectively, and The Cover spoke to the institutions about the timing and execution of their new issues.

Covered bond supply eased today (Wednesday) after some Eu5.3bn of supply in the past three working days, with no new deals officially live and only DnB Nor, Erste and CRH wrapping up issuance yesterday afternoon.

DnB Nor Boligkreditt is pricing a Eu1.5bn seven year covered bond today (Tuesday) after ING Bank reopened the jumbo market yesterday, while further jumbo, sub-jumbo and roadshow projects are in motion.

ING Bank launched the first Eu1bn-plus covered bond issue of the autumn season this (Monday) morning, with DnB Nor Boligkreditt announcing a new benchmark afterwards. At least one more mandate is expected soon, but some bankers said that the restraint being shown by issuers was encouraging.

Terra Boligkreditt reopened the covered bond market with a Eu500m issue this (Friday) morning that bankers said bodes well for an expected surge in issuance over the coming weeks.

Moody’s assigned an A3 rating, on stable outlook, to Norway’s Sparebanken Sør yesterday (Thursday).

The first publicly announced covered bond mandate since the middle of July hit the screens today (Wednesday), with Norway’s Terra Boligkreditt announcing that it has hired banks to carry out investor meetings. And despite a lack of other public plans, syndicate bankers are eying next week for the resumption of new issue activity.