National Bank of Greece is set to sell the first public Greek covered bond in over eight years as early as next Tuesday, having today (Tuesday) announced a roadshow commencing tomorrow ahead of an expected euro-denominated CPT three year issue.

NBG issued the only benchmark Greek covered bond to date, a Eu1.5bn issue in September 2009. That seven year deal, issued out of a Eu10bn soft bullet programme, matured in October 2016.

Since that issue – which was partially bought back by the issuer in 2012 – Greek covered bonds have been used solely for repo purposes. On Friday, it was announced that Greece’s Piraeus Bank is issuing a Eu500m five year covered bond to be primarily placed with the European Investment Bank and other European institutions.

National Bank of Greece announced today that it has mandated Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, NatWest Markets and UBS to organise a European roadshow commencing tomorrow (Wednesday) ahead of a potential euro-denominated covered bond issue.

The roadshow will conclude Monday and the deal could be launched as early as next Tuesday, according to a banker at one of the leads.

The deal is expected to have a three year maturity and will be issued off the bank’s Eu15bn conditional pass-through (CPT) programme. It is expected to be rated B3 by Moody’s and B by Fitch, and will be CRR and Article 129 compliant, said NBG.

According to a self-assessment on NBG’s website, issuance off its Eu15bn CPT programme is eligible for the ECB’s third covered bond purchase programme (CBPP3). The Eurosystem applies a share limit of 30% per ISIN to covered bonds that are issued out of Greece and Cyprus and do not fulfil the programme’s credit quality step 3 rating requirement, compared to a 70% limit for covered bonds from other jurisdictions.

An official at NBG confirmed in August that the bank was preparing for potential covered bond issuance after the Greek government issued a Eu3bn five year bond in July that was the sovereign’s first deal since April 2014.

The issuer has recently carried out changes to its covered bond programme, including a transfer of assets between its programmes that improved the credit quality of the CPT programme and a proposed change to cover pool eligibility criteria.

Commerzbank will be a co-lead manager.