Banca Carige sold the widest priced euro benchmark in over a year today (Monday) and Santander Totta the first Portuguese since January, in deals bankers said went relatively well despite being only modestly oversubscribed and mid-guidance, while a Banca MPS issue is due tomorrow.

The Italian and Portuguese new issues come after peripheral deals from Bank of Ireland and Spain’s Cajamar last week were seen as attracting encouraging demand while offering new issue premiums of around the high double-digits.

Banca Carige leads Commerzbank, Mediobanca, Natixis, Nomura and UBS this morning priced the Italian issuer’s Eu500m five year deal at 100bp over mid-swaps, in the middle of IPTs and guidance of the 100bp area. The books closed at over Eu500m.

“This delivered the result we had worked for, with the deal coming at a reasonable spread and being fully subscribed,” said a syndicate official at one of the leads.

The deal, which had been anticipated since Banca Carige completed a European investor roadshow on 9 October, is the issuer’s first euro benchmark covered bond since October 2013.

The lead syndicate official said the price had been discussed on the roadshow and the 100bp level had been indicated by some key accounts.

The 100bp spread means the new issue is the widest-priced euro benchmark covered bond since a Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) Eu1bn 10 year that was printed at 148bp in July 2014.

“You have to put the spread into context,” said the lead syndicate official. “Carige don’t have a conditional pass-through programme or anything like that, and given their Ba1/BBB- (Moody’s/Fitch) covered bond rating it’s obvious that they do need to price wider than their peers.”

The lead syndicate official said fair value for the new issue is difficult to calculate, as Carige’s outstandings are illiquid. He said the deal offered a premium of around 10bp based on secondary levels, seeing the issuer’s October 2018s quoted at around 65bp, mid.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena meanwhile this afternoon announced a mandate for a long six year euro benchmark issue expected tomorrow (Tuesday). Banca MPS, JP Morgan, RBS and UniCredit have the mandate.

Banco Santander Totta leads Crédit Agricole, Mediobanca, RBS, Santander and UBS priced the Portuguese issuer’s Eu750m five year obrigações hipotecárias (OH) at 55bp over mid-swaps, having launched the deal with guidance of the 55bp area.

The order books had reached Eu750m when the leads set the spread at 11:30 CET.

“It’s not as oversubscribed as some of the deals we saw last week, but it’s still comfortably covered,” said a syndicate official at one of the leads.

A syndicate official at another of the leads said that CBPP3 participation in the deal was in line with that observed in other recent trades.

“For the first Portuguese deal in quite a while, this level of demand and this spread aren’t a bad result,” he added.

The new issue is Totta’s first benchmark covered bond of the year, with the Portuguese bank’s last a Eu750m 2019 issue sold in June of last year. It is also only the second Portuguese benchmark of 2015, following a Eu1bn seven year issue from Caixa Geral de Depósitos in January.

The lead syndicate officials said that based on Totta’s secondary curve the deal offered a premium in line with peripheral trades from last week, of around the high teens.