Aegon Bank intends to return to the covered bond market with at least one benchmark per year, according to a treasury official at the Dutch group, after it sold a debut, Eu750m five year CPT issue yesterday (Tuesday) that offered investors a rare opportunity to gain exposure to the credit.

“For a first time issuer, with a relatively new CPT structure, we are very happy with both the amount we raised and the price,” said Ed Beije, senior vice president and co-head of treasury at the Aegon group.

“With a debut deal you always have to be pretty modest, so I think we can be very proud of printing Eu750m in the current market.”

According to Beije, Aegon Bank has no public debt outstanding in the form of senior or capital issuance.

Aegon leads ABN Amro, Rabobank, RBS, SG and UniCredit launched the euro benchmark five year issue today with initial price thoughts of the 10bp over mid-swaps area this morning. They then moved to guidance of the 9bp area with orders in excess of Eu850m, before fixing the spread at 8bp. The book closed at close to Eu1bn, comprising 46 accounts.

The deal was quoted at re-offer this (Wednesday) morning, according to syndicate officials.

Beije said the deal was broadly distributed, with sizeable orders from the Netherlands and Germany. He added that the deal was not dependent on the support of CBPP3.

Asset managers bought 37%, central banks and official institutions 35%, banks 22%, and insurance companies 6%. Dutch accounts were allocated 54%, Germany and Austria 23%, Asia 5%, Italy 5%, the Nordics 4%, France 3%, the UK 2%, Switzerland 2%, and others 2%.

According to a lead syndicate official, the Dutch participation was higher than for any other covered bond.

“This is one of the most interesting deals that I have worked on so far,” he added. “The support of Dutch investors was amazing.”

He said the deal particularly appealed to Dutch investors because of a strong recognition of the Aegon name and an attractive yield, further supported by Dutch government bonds now trading with a negative yield in the five year part of the curve.

The deal came after Aegon held a European roadshow last week, and Beije said that the feedback received on the programme was positive overall.

“Some investors had questions about the CPT structure because it is still pretty new,” he said. “But on the other hand, lots of investors were already very comfortable with the structure.

“You have to be realistic and know that not every investor you speak to will get involved in your first deal, but, given that, we are pleased with the demand we received.”

Beije said Aegon had been considering covered bonds for some time before announcing its Eu5bn programme on 2 November, and added that going forward covered bonds will provide an important tool through which Aegon can diversify its funding sources.

“We have of course been active in the RMBS market, but the bank is at the moment a pretty good success story,” he said. “It is growing, so it now makes sense for us to have a covered bond programme and we are confident, given how the bank is developing, that we will be able to offer regular supply to the market.”

Beije said Aegon intends to return to the covered bond market with a benchmark deal at least once per year in each the coming years, depending on market conditions.