Bankinter launched its second benchmark covered bond of the year yesterday (Thursday), a Eu500m five year no-grow that came only two weeks after its last benchmark and was described by an official at the issuer as a “good exercise” as it had to face more adverse market conditions.

Bankinter reopened the cédulas market on 10 January with a Eu500m no-grow three and half year deal that attracted Eu3.6bn of orders. It is the only covered bond issuer to have launched two benchmarks since the beginning of the year.

Covadonga Perez, head of the funding department at Bankinter, said that despite not being “as a strong exercise as the previous one”, the deal went in line with expectations.

“We planned to print a Eu500m no-grow issue at 220bp over mid-swaps and we got it,” she said, “we have a coupon of 3.125%, and a yield of 3.19% for a five year covered bond.”

Leads Banco Santander, Bankinter, Citi, Commerzbank and Crédit Agricole priced the deal at 220bp over mid-swaps, in line with guidance of the 220bp over mid-swaps area, and collected Eu600m of orders.

Perez said that market conditions yesterday were not as good as at the beginning of the month.

“This is probably due to the large amount of supply that came from Spain recently,” she said. “We had a lot of issues both in terms of covered bonds and Spanish treasuries. Perhaps the market was a bit softer.”

Some syndicate bankers said that many Spanish issuers were tapping the market in January to make the most of the open market window, fearing that it could close again soon.

Perez said this was not the main reason for Bankinter tapping the market again.

“We saw the market closed last year and the year before, so it’s normal that people are scared,” she said, “but other factors played a role in the decision to issue.”

One of them was to issue a five year deal to complete Bankinter’s curve.

“We wanted to tap the five year because we don’t have any 2018 maturity,” she said. “Now our curve has achieved a good degree of granularity.”

Some 50 accounts participated in the transaction. Spanish investors took one of the largest shares in recent deals, 41%, followed by Germany and Austria with 29%, the UK 16%, France 7%, Switzerland 5%, Italy 1%, and others 1%.

Banks and trusts were allocated 44%, fund managers 38%, and insurance companies 18%.