A Eu4bn order book for Portugal’s Caixa Geral and good demand for newcomer Banco Mare Nostrum of Spain today (Wednesday) underscored the strong bid for high beta supply, but core deals also fared well and CBA and Sparebanken Vest have mandated new issues.

ANZ Banking Group and La Banque Postale were in the market this morning alongside Banco Mare Nostrum and Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), after two deals were priced in euro covered bonds yesterday (Monday), for Caffil and Nordea Bank Finland, plus several transactions in senior unsecured and the first capital trade of the year.

Further covered bond supply is already imminent, with Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Sparebanken Vest Boligkreditt having mandated for five year euro benchmarks. The Australian bank has mandated BNP Paribas, CBA, HSBC and RBS, and the Norwegian has mandated Commerzbank, HSBC, Nordea and UniCredit.

A syndicate banker described the first round of issuance in FIG as “powerful” and said that yesterday’s amount of supply looked to have outstripped that in any one day in 2013 by some Eu2.5bn-Eu3.5bn.

While the euro senior unsecured market was quieter today, with a five year for Bank of Ireland the main transaction, covered bond activity went up a notch. Between them today’s four deals drew at least Eu8.5bn of demand, skewed heavily toward the first Portuguese issue since January last year, a Eu750m five year obrigações hipotecárias for Caixa Geral.

Leads Crédit Agricole, Caixa BI, Commerzbank, HSBC and JP Morgan built an order book of more than Eu4bn (pre-concilation) comprising over 200 accounts, and will price the mortgage backed deal at 188bp over mid-swaps, after guidance of 190bp-195bp over and initial price thoughts of the 200bp over area.

The deal comes after and amid a rally in Portuguese government bonds, and with Caixa Geral set to pay some 75bp-80bp less than the sovereign for five year funding, according to a lead syndicate official.

But while the rally in government bonds was helpful, he said that the main driver of the transaction was the strong bid for higher beta supply.

“It’s the name of the game this year,” he said. “People expect high beta to perform.”

The strength of demand is such that an unfamiliar issuer like Banco Mare Nostrum can achieve a similarly positive outcome in the market, he added.

The Spanish issuer is the result of a merger in 2010 between Caixa Penedès, Caja Murcia, Caja Granada and Sa Nostra, and today’s deal is its first benchmark covered bond.

Leads Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Natixis and Nomura are pricing a Eu500m five year cédulas at 190bp over mid-swaps on the back of some Eu1.7bn of orders after having gone out with initial price thoughts of the 210bp area and guidance of the 200bp area.

A syndicate official at one of the leads said that they had been considering IPTs of the 220bp area yesterday, but went with the tighter levels because the market was even better this morning.

According to preliminary statistics, as much as two-thirds of the book is non-Spanish, he said. The Spanish bank did not hold a roadshow before the new issue, but had done some investor work, he added.

Core issuers have also been faring well. La Banque Postale Home Loan SFH met with some Eu1.5bn of orders for a Eu750m 10 year obligations de financement de l’habitat issue that will be priced at 28bp over, the tight end of guidance of the 30bp over area. Leads Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Natixis and UniCredit began marketing the transaction at the low 30s over.

Australia’s ANZ Banking Group, which announced the mandate for its deal on Monday, also opted for the 10 year maturity, and leads ANZ, Barclays, BNP Paribas and UBS had built an order book of more than Eu1.3bn at the time of writing. Initial price thoughts were set at the 40bp over area, with guidance then revised to the 37bp over area. The leads will price a Eu1.25bn deal at 36bp over, according to the latest update.

The deal is ANZ’s second 10 year in euros, after it tapped the maturity for its inaugural benchmark in the currency in January 2012, with a syndicate official at one of the leads noting that the outcome of Caffil’s trade in 10 years yesterday (Tuesday) had been encouraging.