Kutxa yesterday (Thursday) sold the first cédulas benchmark since Moody’s cut most of the Spanish covered bonds it rates last Friday (25 March).

The Spanish savings bank sold a Eu600m four year deal via Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, HSBC, JP Morgan, LBBW and Natixis.

The deal was soft-sounded at 240bp over mid-swaps and in less than one and a half hours the leads gathered around Eu400m of indications of interest. Official guidance of 235bp-240bp (with pricing no tighter) was then given and investors placed Eu830m of orders.

With hardly any price sensitivity in the book, the leads were able to price the issue at 235bp over. The Eu600m size was the top of the Eu500m-Eu600m range planned for the deal.

The issuer benefited from strong support from domestic investors, who took 55% of the paper, with Scandinavia taking 18%, Germany and Austria taking 9%, the UK and Ireland 8%, Italy 5%, France 3%, and others 2%. Asset managers were allocated 49%, banks 22%, central banks 17%, insurance companies 7%, and others 5%.

Kutxa (Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Gipuzkoa y San Sebastián) achieved pricing inside that of a four year cédulas it launched in November. That deal was launched at 245bp over and was trading at 225bp before this week’s new issue was launched.

A syndicate official at one of the leads said that Kutxa’s deal had been helped by the issuer’s profile.

“Kutxa is an infrequent issuer,” he said. “It is a very good name. Its ratios are very solid, with its tier one ratio high, and the Basque region is solid, too.

“It was also not downgraded by Moody’s – it is not rated by them.”

The cédulas are rated AAA by Standard & Poor’s.

Moody’s last week cut 18 cédulas programmes and 58 multi-cédulas transactions.