Swedbank took advantage of a buoyant subordinated debt market and strong demand for Nordic credits to sell its first Tier 2 transaction in four years yesterday (Wednesday), a Eu500m 10 year non-call five deal.
Svenska Handelsbanken launched a £300m (Eu371m/Skr3.21bn) 10 year senior unsecured issue on Monday, the Swedish bank’s longest dated deal in the UK currency.
DLR Kredit on Wednesday for the first time issued senior secured debt pursuant to Section 33e of Danish covered bond legislation, selling Dkr4bn (Eu536m) of what are also known as Junior Covered Bonds.
Jane Soldera, vice president, senior credit officer at Moody’s, spoke to The Covered Bond Report’s Susanna Rust about the rating agency’s stance on key issues facing Nordic covered bonds.
The level of euro liquidity due to bank borrowing from the European Central Bank (ECB) has not been making headlines since the two three year longer term refinancing operations (LTROs) last December (Eu489.5bn) and February (Eu529.5bn).
Ten Nordic banks had their outlooks revised from stable to negative by Standard & Poor’s on Monday because of increasing economic risks arising from a longer than expected recession in the euro-zone.
Aktia Bank sold a Eu200m three year floating rate note today (Thursday), making a rare appearance in senior unsecured format while it makes the transition from issuing covered bonds via Aktia Real Estate Mortgage Bank to issuing directly.
Adjustable rate mortgage bonds offered by Danish mortgage credit institutions met with strong demand over the first four days of end-of-year auctions, with bid-to-cover ratios higher than recent years and spreads some 10bp tighter than market levels before the auctions.
Senior unsecured will be the cornerstone of bank funding in 2013, forecasts Vincent Hoarau, Head of FIs, Covered Bond & ABS Syndicate at Crédit Agricole CIB, with covered bond supply being partially led by the periphery and Nordic covered bonds being in a strong position.
Michal Klestinec, senior portfolio manager, National Bank of Slovakia, shared his views on Nordic covered bonds with Nordic FIs & Covered.