Moody’s assigned a B3 provisional rating to a soft bullet covered bond programme of Alpha Bank yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon – matching the rating of other Greek issuers if not the CPT structure of recent comeback benchmarks – prompting speculation that it could be preparing a new issue.

Alpha Bank is the only of the big four Greek banks to have not issued benchmark-sized covered bonds following the market’s reopening in October.

On 10 October, National Bank of Greece (NBG) sold the first bank bond since the country’s debt crisis, a Eu750m three year covered bond. Eurobank Ergasias followed on 24 October with a Eu500m three year, while Piraeus on the same date priced a Eu500m five year that was mostly privately placed with European institutions.

Alpha Bank declined to comment on whether it has any plans for new covered bond issuance.

However, bankers away from the issuer speculated that it could be planning to follow its compatriots into the market.

“The rating would suggest they are planning something,” said a syndicate banker. “Given how well the other Greeks’ deals went and how well they have performed, it would make sense for Alpha to be looking closely at their options.”

Moody’s said the provisional B3 covered bond rating reflects factors including the credit strength of the issuer and a covered bond anchor of its CR assessment – Caa2 – plus one notch.

As of 30 September 2017, Alpha’s cover pool totalled some Eu1.17bn, according to Moody’s. The rating agency’s analysis of the cover pool assumes issuance of Eu1bn. Based on this, it said the overcollateralisation will be approximately 17.3%, of which the issuer provides 5.3% on a committed basis.

The Timely Payment Indicator (TPI) assigned to the programme is “very improbable”, and the TPI Leeway for the programme is zero notches.

Moody’s rates Alpha Bank Caa3.

The B3 rating matches that of the programmes of NBG, Eurobank and Piraeus. However, Alpha Bank’s programme has a soft bullet structure, whereas NBG and Eurobank both used conditional pass-through programmes for their recent public deals.

The ECB announced last week that, as of 1 February, CPT programmes of issuers that do not have a first-best investment grade rating will be ineligible for its covered bond purchase programme, affecting the programmes of NBG and Eurobank.

Greek and Cypriot covered bonds that are rated below investment grade are currently eligible for CBPP3 provided they meet additional criteria, including a minimum OC commitment of 25%.