UK

Coventry Building Society mandated leads to run a roadshow for its first euro denominated covered bond since October 2011. The deal is expected to offer a small premium to top UK names and is therefore likely to attract strong demand.

New issue momentum picked up in the RMBS market this week as one Dutch deal was priced and another was announced, along with a sterling deal from a UK bank. However, pricing softened as euphoria over the ECB’s purchase programme began to wane.

Jez Walsh has left Royal Bank of Scotland where he had been in charge of covered bond syndication for 15 years. His departure follows a string of high profile exits from RBS’ covered bond team including Allen Rad, Christoph Anhamm, Frank Will and Jason Wolfe.

Greencoat UK Wind, one of a number of recently listed British renewable energy funds, is set to raise £100m that will refinance a bank facility used for the fund's recent acquisitions.

Abbey National returned to the euro covered bond market for the first time this year on Thursday, following the same dual tranche format that Nationwide and Helaba have successfully established. Though UK bonds are unlikely to be eligible for the European Central Bank’s forthcoming purchase programme, both tranches priced with a negligible new issue premium with well oversubscribed and granular demand.

Credit Suisse mandated leads for a euro benchmark on Wednesday. After roadshowing earlier this week, Santander UK’s subsidiary Abbey has held back from the market following the tragic news that the banking group’s executive chairman passed away on Tuesday.

The sterling FRN market picked up on Monday as Barclays was set to price the largest ever covered bond in the domestic currency and Danske Bank was poised to price a benchmark. The two borrowers follow Nordea Eiendomskreditt which attracted robust demand last week.

Nordea Eiendomskreditt has priced its first sterling covered bond backed by Norwegian residential loans. The £500m three year floater appealed to investors on a number of counts and provided competitive funding for the issuer.

RBS was unable to attract a sufficient quorum to pass a series of swap amendments to its covered bond programme.

RBS announced several proposals related to the swap triggers in its covered bond programme after being downgraded by Moody’s. The plans, which will be subject to an investor vote, will allow RBS to remain the swap counterparty and thereby help it to avoid the higher cost of employing an alternative swap provider as was envisaged under the original swap agreement.

Goldman Sachs will give investors more time to understand the unique structure of its Fixed Income Global Structured Covered Obligation (Figsco) and appreciate just how different it is from a pure market value deal, or a covered bond (This story has one comment).

Nationwide became on Tuesday the third British financial institution to offer a three year floating rate note (FRN) this year. Looking to harness the remnants of the momentum it built in the market during its dual tranche euro deal at the end of last month, the building society’s deal was more oversubscribed than the other two similar deals — from Abbey and Lloyds Bank — done in January.