Berlin Hyp is expected to launch the first green covered bond next week after having completed a roadshow today (Friday), while bankers said others are looking at the market ahead of possible deals. Meanwhile, Ålandsbanken has announced a roadshow for a Eu250m deal.

Upon finishing its roadshow, Berlin Hyp announced that it will launch the Grüner Pfandbrief – backed by commercial real estate loans that meet certain environmental and sustainability standards – next week. Launch is expected early in the week, with Friday a public holiday and conferences related to Pfandbriefe and green bonds mid-week.

The deal will be a Eu500m no-grow issue with a medium term maturity, according to today’s announcement, and will be led by Crédit Agricole, DZ, JP Morgan, LBBW and UniCredit.

Finland’s Ålandsbanken is expected to issue a Eu250m covered bond in mid-May, having announced a roadshow that will run from 5 May to 12 May. Commerzbank and Nordea are the leads.

The deal will be Ålandsbanken’s largest. In October 2014 it sold a Eu150m four year issue at 20bp over mid-swaps, which was at the time the issuer’s largest single-tranche covered bond.

The new issue will be issued out of the bank’s Finnish cover pool. Covered bonds backed by a Swedish pool the bank also issues off were on Wednesday upgraded from AA to AAA by S&P. The rating agency said an analysis of the Finnish cover pool is expected to be completed and published shortly.

Bankers said they expect the primary market to remain relatively quiet next week, although two or three issuers were said to be contemplating new deals.

“I expect we will settle into a pattern of two or three benchmarks per week,” said a syndicate official.

He added that peripheral issuers may be encouraged should a Eurogroup meeting today pass without any negative headlines.

“If the market is stable at the start of next week and it looks like progress is being made on Greece, I think there will be a good window for the peripherals,” he said.

Another syndicate official disagreed, saying that most peripheral issuers were either not under pressure to secure funding or were likely to opt for alternative instruments.

“I don’t see a range of peripheral names coming to the market,” he said, “but that is for technical reasons, rather than anything to do with market sentiment.”

“I think next week will be business as usual,” he added.