Danske Bank sold its first sterling covered bond on Monday, a £500m (Dkr4.64bn, Eu624m) three year floating rate note that attracted £800m of demand despite coming at the same time as a £1.5bn Barclays Bank covered bond in the same format.
DLR Kredit is close to bringing to an end the latest round of refinancing auctions by Denmark’s mortgage credit institutions (MCIs), having today (Thursday) finished its auctions of one year ARM bonds, while BRFkredit has said it is pleased with the response to its new, pre-financed bonds.
Nykredit Realkredit launched an inaugural senior unsecured Eu500m five year floating rate note on Tuesday, the first time the Danish financial group has issued a euro senior unsecured instrument out of its mortgage credit institution rather than Nykredit Bank.
Moody’s changed its outlook on the Danish banking system from negative to stable yesterday (Wednesday) because of a continuing stabilisation of the operating environment and reduced risks for Danish financial institutions, with covered bond developments seen as key.
Jyske Bank Group reported Dkr2.8bn (Eu376m) of pre-tax profit for the second half of 2014 on Tuesday, its largest profit ever, although the figures are the first since the merger with BRFkredit in April, which contributed nearly Dkr2.4bn in one-off income to the result.
Danske Bank sold a Skr5bn (Eu546m, Dkr4.08bn) April 2018 floating rate covered bond backed by Swedish and Norwegian residential and commercial mortgages yesterday (Wednesday), which was the Danish bank’s first covered bond issue in Swedish kronor in more than two years.
Danske Bank priced its first euro covered bond in over a year on Tuesday, a Eu1bn seven year deal whose pricing illustrates the outperformance of Danish issues in the Nordic market, according to a lead syndicate banker.
A Danish bill on conditional mortgage bond maturity extensions will help reduce liquidity risk, but does not on its own reduce refinancing risk in the country’s mortgage system, said Fitch, urging the industry to continue its efforts to tackle this risk by other means.
Jyske Bank and BRFkredit are planning to merge, they announced on Monday, in a move that will step up competition in the Danish banking industry, with the potential for steep growth in mortgage lending for the combined entity and a tightening of BRFkredit bond spreads among effects cited.
A proposal for conditional mandatory extension of some Danish covered bonds is a “step in the right direction” but does not fully eradicate mortgage banks’ refinancing risk, S&P said yesterday (Wednesday), and an issuer said the rating agency’s intervention could be helpful.