UK

Lloyds TSB Bank yesterday (Wednesday) extended the maturity profile of its Regulated Covered Bond programme with a Eu750m eight year issue that offered insurance company accounts a sought-after 4% coupon, an official at the issuer told The Cover.

New covered bonds launched by Danske Bank, Lloyds TSB and SpareBank 1 Boligkreditt met with modest demand today (Wednesday), although syndicate bankers highlighted high quality order books and sub-Eu1bn issue sizes in longer maturities as respectable achievements.

Five new Eu500m plus covered bonds were announced in the past 24 hours after yesterday (Monday) morning’s two, despite market conditions proving worse than last week, when 12 hit the market. The deals announced today (Tuesday) are set to take euro jumbo issuance this year past Eu100bn.

Fitch said today (Monday) that it expects forthcoming changes to deposit protection in the UK to mitigate set-off exposure in UK structured finance transactions and covered bond programmes.

Royal Bank of Scotland's debut covered bond, as seen through the bottom of EuroWeek cartoonist Olly Copplestone's whisky tumbler.

At least two banks have mandated for covered bonds that are expected next week, after supply this week of Eu10.7bn.

Royal Bank of Scotland braved a volatile market to launch its first benchmark covered bond and the first UK deal for almost three months yesterday (Wednesday), and the issuer told The Cover that it was thrilled to have been able to debut successfully in such challenging conditions.

Royal Bank of Scotland launched its first benchmark covered bond this (Wednesday) morning, a Eu1.25bn three year issue that market participants said had succeeded despite coming in a tough market and as the number of Eu500m or greater deals this week hit 10, totalling Eu9.2bn. Meanwhile, Aareal Bank and WL Bank added to the growing supply of sub-Eu1bn issues.

Standard & Poor’s has affirmed at AAA mortgage covered bonds issued by Eurohypo and Barclays’ Spanish arm under its new rating criteria, and assigned the ratings a stable outlook.

Standard & Poor’s has affirmed the AAA ratings of the mortgage covered bond programmes of Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB Bank, on stable outlook.

Barclays Bank plans to issue registered covered bonds off its Eu35bn global covered bond programme, the UK bank announced today (Tuesday).

Hopes that benchmark covered bond issuance could restart next week have been reined in after reports that French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull out of the euro-zone contributed to renewed volatility today (Friday).