The impact of the Norwegian housing market on covered bonds has been an ongoing topic for quite some time now. After strong growth of over 300% in the last 20 years, we’ve started to see the beginning of a correction in Norwegian house prices more recently.
The Danish government and several opposition parties last Thursday (6 February) agreed on legislation aimed at reducing refinancing risk in the country’s mortgage system, after the central bank said S&P had made a positive statement about the bill.
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.
SBAB and Svenska Handelsbanken had their ratings affirmed by S&P yesterday (Wednesday), two months after the rating agency placed them on CreditWatch negative.
Danske Bank has launched a cash tender offer for a $1bn (Eu748m, Dkr5.58bn) Tier 2 instrument it issued a year ago that lost favourable equity treatment by Standard & Poor’s in July, with uncertainty over the tax treatment of new instruments preventing the issuer from offering an exchange.
Nykredit will launch its August refinancing auctions next Thursday, with one year ARM bonds dominating after a smaller than expected take-up of longer interest reset periods. Meanwhile, Realkredit Danmark is launching a Cita product aimed at addressing concerns about refinancing risk.
Danish banks’ funding profiles are a weakness and the Swedish banking system shows a structural mismatch of assets and liabilities, Standard & Poor’s said in July in the context of a range of rating actions on banks and their debt in these jurisdictions.
Danske Bank is considering its options for dealing with a change in methodology by Standard & Poor’s that means certain features of Tier 2 subordinated debt issued in September no longer count toward the bank’s RAC ratio, it said on 17 July.
Gjensidige Bank has become more strategically important to its parent, Norwegian insurance group Gjensidige, according to Standard & Poor’s, which upgraded the bank, subsidiary Gjensidige Bank Boligkreditt, and the latter’s covered bonds on Friday.
Standard & Poor’s expects a shift in the Danish mortgage market towards longer term and CITA-linked loans, despite questions about their popularity in light of the costs associated with such mortgage products.