Danske subsidiary Sampo Bank is pricing its first benchmark covered bond of the year today (Thursday), a Eu1bn no-grow seven year issue that offered a premium over top tier Finnish names but came tight to the issuer’s curve, said a lead syndicate official, after some others saw a wider new issue premium.
Aktia Bank will take over from Aktia Real Estate Mortgage Bank as the Finnish group’s covered bond issuer, a move fuelled by regulatory and rating criteria changes that favour more “streamlined” universal bank issuance, the specialist issuer announced last Wednesday (12 September).
Fitch put its AAA rating of Realkredit Danmark capital centre T issuance on Rating Watch Negative on Tuesday as it began implementing updated covered bond rating criteria, under which it has assigned Discontinuity Caps and outlooks to programmes from Denmark and Norway.
Danske Bank is set to price a new US dollar-denominated 25 year non-call five Tier 2 issue today (Thursday), with a coupon said to be in the 7.125% area after the deal was heavily oversubscribed.
The Covered Bond Report’s Neil Day spoke to John Arne Wang, head of treasury management at SEB, about the bank’s recent tier two issue and its funding strategy.
Norway’s Storebrand Boligkreditt took advantage of healthy domestic demand and tighter levels to increase a June 2017 Norwegian krone floating rate covered bond by Nkr400m yesterday (Wednesday), taking the new issue size to Nkr2.65bn (Eu356m).
Nordic banks’ strong credit stories have been a key factor in enabling their position alongside Dutch banks at the head of a wave of lower Tier 2 issues hitting the market since last week, Fitch said on Tuesday.
Norwegian covered bond issuers will gain representation on the steering committee of the European Covered Bond Council from January, with DNB’s Helge Stray becoming one of two new members.
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken raised Eu750m of tier two capital yesterday (Wednesday) amid a flurry of subordinated debt that also saw Danske Bank mandate for a US dollar issue.
Ålandsbanken made its covered bond debut with a Eu200m dual tranche issue yesterday (Wednesday), and its group treasurer said it is pleased to have tapped the market after a lengthy lead-up.