A Eu1.5bn five year Crédit Agricole Home Loan SFH obligations à l’habitat issue yesterday (Thursday) generated the largest book ever for the French bank, which could also price the deal inside its secondary curve.

Leads Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole, ING and Natixis closed books with Eu4.5bn in orders and 150 accounts, the largest book for a Crédit Agricole deal, according to a syndicate official at one of the leads.

The bookrunners went out with initial price thoughts of the 70bp over mid-swaps area before opening books at guidance of 65bp-70bp over, then revising this to 65bp over and pricing the deal at 63bp.

The syndicate official put an outstanding March 2017 from the issuer at 60.5bp on the bid side, while a June 2018 was at 74bp before the new issue was announced. He said this gave an interpolated July 2017 point on the secondary curve of around 65bp.

“So pricing at 63bp is roughly 2bp inside the curve,” he said. “At this level, the reception and size of the book were huge – this is because we got the right tractions and dynamic from the outset.

“At 70bp the deal could have looked cheap, but in today’s markets when people are engaged in primary and in a book, they stay on board even if you tighten guidance by 7bp in a swift process with huge momentum.”

He said investors also know that the final pricing outcome was fair, while supply was lacking in primary.

“I think if we had started at 65bp area initial price thoughts we would have gone nowhere,” he said.

The bond was trading 2bp tighter at 61bp this morning, he added.

Distribution was well balanced between France and Germany, according to the syndicate official. He noted the granularity from the German investor base was much higher.

Banks took 55%, asset managers 26%, insurance companies and pension funds 9%, central banks 6%, and others 4%. France was allocated 32%, Germany and Austria 32%, the UK 9%, other 8%, southern Europe 7%, the Benelux 5%, Nordics 4%, and Switzerland 3%.

He said the issuer opted for a July 2017 maturity for asset-liability management reasons, as it allowed it to have a new redemption in H2 2017.