Crédit Agricole Home Loan SFH sold a Eu1.5bn issue yesterday (Wednesday), distinguishing its first euro obligations à l’habitat benchmark from recent French supply by opting for a seven year maturity.

Leads BBVA, Crédit Agricole, RBS, Société Générale and UniCredit built a book of Eu2.3bn for the new issue and priced the transaction at 53bp over mid-swaps yesterday afternoon.

“The choice of the maturity was driven by the lack of supply on the seven year sector and the 2018 maturity fitting nicely into Crédit Agricole Home Loan’s credit curve, while the issuer was keen to differentiate itself from the French competing supply on the five and 10 year parts of the curve,” said a spokesperson for Crédit Agricole.

New benchmark supply from France in May comprised two 10 year deals and three five years, while there has been no new seven year euro benchmark from any jurisdiction since March.

After a pan-European roadshow in late May, the issuer approached the market on Tuesday with a price whisper of the mid to high 50s over mid-swaps. On the back of positive feedback, the leads then opened books at 0850 CET yesterday with guidance of the mid-swaps plus 55bp area. A March 2017 Crédit Agricole benchmark had been trading at 49.5bp bid when the new issue was announced.

Within half an hour more than Eu1.5bn of orders were placed and the guidance was revised to 53bp over. When the books were closed at 1120 demand totalled Eu2.3bn, comprising almost 100 accounts.

“Pricing was in line with the secondary market curve and the issuer paid a limited new issue premium over the secondary market curve,” said the Crédit Agricole spokesperson. “On a curve extension basis, we can even say that the deal priced flat to the secondary curve, with a good size and good level of oversubscription.”

Germany and Austria were allocated 42% of the bonds, France 21%, the UK 12%, the Benelux 8%, Nordics 6%, Italy 4%, Switzerland 3%, Spain 3%, and Asia 1%. Banks took 51%, insurance companies 23%, asset managers 23%, and central banks 3%.

The paper was quoted at 51bp/49bp this (Thursday) morning.