NN Bank and Belfius today (Monday) made the most of a pre-summer issuance window that remains open even if demand is not overwhelming, said bankers, as the former priced a EUR500m seven year and the latter a EUR500m 10 year. Haspa is due to issue a EUR500m five year tomorrow.

Today’s two deals were the first euro benchmark issues of June, a month in which heavy covered bond redemptions are expected to be conducive for new euro issuance, providing issuers an opportunity to get deals done ahead of the summer break and – potentially – further widening in spreads in the second half of the year, with market participants eyeing the end of the ECB’s covered bond purchase programme.

Syndicate bankers said that while neither of today’s deals attracted huge demand – the results being “OK to OK-ish” in the words of one – they showed that issuers can still secure funding at relatively attractive levels.

“Neither of today’s trades give the sense that the market is on fire,” said a syndicate banker that worked on one of the deals. “I therefore don’t expect huge issuance volumes for the remainder of the week, but at the same time, the holiday period is approaching, so it just depends on how issuers look at the market strategically.

“You can either take the view that markets will strengthen and wait until the market reopens after summer, or you take the view that spreads are only going higher and it’s better to take advantage of the market we have. In my view, I think some issuers will in a few months’ time be very happy that they used this window.”

NN Bank leads ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, LBBW and Rabobank launched the EUR500m no-grow September 2025 conditional pass-through (CPT) issue with guidance of the mid-swaps plus 8bp area this morning. After around one hour and 50 minutes, the leads announced that books had surpassed EUR500m.

Guidance was subsequently revised to the 6bp area, plus or minus 1bp will price within range, with books over EUR650m, before the spread was fixed at 5bp with books over EUR730m, pre-reconciliation.

“I think the issuer made a very good decision to do a deal now and make use of demand that is definitely still there, and definitely there when you are willing to pay a bit of a premium,” said a syndicate banker at one of the leads.

The final spread was seen as incorporating a new issue premium of around 6bp, based on the covered bond curves of NN Bank’s fellow Dutch issuers.

The new issue is NN Bank’s second benchmark covered bond, following a EUR500m seven year debut last October. The October 2024s were seen at around minus 4bp, mid, but bankers said the deal was relatively illiquid and suggested that more recent Dutch deals made more appropriate comparables.

Belfius Bank leads Belfius, Credit Suisse, Natixis, NatWest and UniCredit priced the EUR500m no-grow 10 year issue at 6bp over mid-swaps on the back of more than EUR850m of orders, down from initial guidance of the 8bp area. The final book was over EUR1bn.

“It’s a good result, especially given the 10 year tenor, in a market where investors have been favouring the intermediate maturities,” said a syndicate banker away from the leads.

Syndicate bankers said the deal offered a new issue premium of 5bp-6bp, seeing BNP Paribas Fortis March 2028s – the last 10 year benchmark from Belgium – quoted at flat to plus 1bp, mid.

They noted that the premiums paid by both today’s deals were in line with those paid on new issues last week.

“I think if you do anything else in this market, you’re going to get into trouble,” said a syndicate banker.

Although bankers are unsure of the depth of the covered bond pipeline, Hamburger Sparkasse (Haspa) is expected to join the market tomorrow (Tuesday). The issuer announced this morning that it has mandated BayernLB, Commerzbank, DekaBank, Haspa and LBBW to lead manage a EUR500m no-grow five year mortgage Pfandbrief.

The deal will be Haspa’s first benchmark Pfandbriefe since May 2017, when it issued a EUR500m seven year.

BNZ meanwhile announced a roadshow starting on 18 June and ending on 22 June, after which it may issue a euro-denominated covered bond or senior unsecured benchmark. DZ Bank and NAB have the mandate.