La Caixa this (Tuesday) morning held off issuing a six year cédulas hipotecarias that had been expected today, with market conditions cited as contributing to its decision. Meanwhile, Yorkshire Building Society launched a debut sterling benchmark covered bond and CRH wrapped up a Eu700m tap.

Leads Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and La Caixa are understood to be waiting for a stronger market to launch the deal for the Barcelona-based savings bank. An investor said that he had been told that a Moody’s downgrade of Portuguese government debt from A3 to Baa1 had contributed to La Caixa’s move.

“Was it the Portugal downgrade this morning that diminished further demand for Iberian debt?” he said. “I’m not sure about that. If you look at peripheral spreads, it’s rather muted.

“They are a bit wider, but only in the low single-digits.”

With La Caixa having already launched two benchmark covered bonds this year, he suggested that a more likely explanation was simply that the bank wanted to, and could afford to, wait until it could achieve better pricing. He had heard a level of the 195bp over mid-swaps area being targeted.

“I had already asked myself if they really needed the money or were just being opportunistic because there was a window there,” he said, “and, if so, then maybe they aren’t willing to pay more than 195bp if demand is not convincing at that level.”

La Caixa sold a Eu2bn five year issue at 220bp over mid-swaps on 10 February and a Eu1.25bn four year at 200bp over on 8 March.

Yorkshire Building Society is pricing a seven year sterling benchmark at 153bp over Gilts today through leads Barclays Capital, HSBC and UBS. The deal, Yorkshire’s debut in its home currency, had guidance of the 155bp over Gilts area.

Caisse de Refinancement de l’Habitat sized a tap of a Eu1.75bn 12 year issue at Eu700m yesterday after attracting that level of demand.

The CRH increase, which took the issue to Eu2.45bn, was priced at 70bp over mid-swaps, by leads BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, LBBW and Natixis.

“The outcome of Eu700m was more than satisfying,” said a banker at one of the leads. “It was one of those deals that you open the books and see how large it will grow.

“Bookbuilding was steady – not exuberant, but not slow or sticky, either. The books were open for about five hours, enough time for investors to get their heads around it.”

A syndicate official at another of the leads said that Eu700m was the preferred size all along.

“We tried to reach 4.5% as the re-offer yield, but the market was moving in the wrong direction as we went to price it, and so the re-offer yield is shy of 4.5%,” he said.

The trade had a coupon of 4.3%

“I’m happy that we priced the deal when we did, and didn’t wait,” he said at yesterday’s close. “The Bund future is at 121.17 at the moment and when we priced the deal, it was at 121.00.”

The bankers said that the order book was filled with high quality orders, with Germany and France taking 48% each, and Belgium and Italy the remaining 4%. Banks took 64%, funds 22%, insurance companies 12%, and others 2%.