BPCE issued a Eu1bn 12 year covered bond today (Tuesday), taking over Eu1.4bn of orders, with a double-digit spread thought to have helped the French issuer pull in investors for what could have been a tricky tenor.

Leads Commerzbank, DZ, HSBC, Natixis, Swedbank and UBS launched the Eu1bn no-grow obligations de financement de l’habitat with guidance of the 15bp over mid-swaps area this morning. After just over an hour, the leads announced that they had taken more than Eu1bn of orders.

Guidance was then revised to the 13bp area, before the spread was fixed at 12bp on the back of books over Eu1.4bn.

“It’s a good result,” said a banker away from the leads. “A 12 year is not the most straightforward of maturities, but it went very smoothly.”

Bankers said the deal offered a new issue premium of 4bp-5bp, seeing Crédit Agricole May 2027s at around flat, mid, and March 2031s at around 6bp, and noting that BPCE trades around 4bp wider than Crédit Agricole at the shorter end of the curve.

“That’s a fairly sizeable premium compared with recent trades, but it feels right for a 12 year,” said a syndicate banker.

The deal was deemed a more impressive result than a Eu1bn 10 year for Finland’s OP Mortgage Bank today, which attracted around Eu1.3bn of orders, and bankers attributed this to BPCE’s double-digit spread, compared with OP’s final spread of 1bp over mid-swaps.

“Both were fairly ambitious trades, targeting Eu1bn from the start,” said a syndicate banker away from the leads. “Neither failed by any stretch, but BPCE feels the more convincing of the two.”

The new issue is BPCE’s second benchmark covered bond this year, following a Eu750m seven year on 10 February.