SNS Bank is planning to roadshow next week ahead of a potential benchmark covered bond issue, although an official at the issuer said it is targeting the New Year after having been absent from the market through 2011.

Leads DZ Bank, Natixis, Rabobank and RBS will arrange meetings in the Nordics, Germany, Austria, and the UK, though a syndicate official from one of the leads added the details had not been finalised yet.

René Genet in SNS Bank’s funding team said that with the roadshow taking up a full week, settlement of any issue in December would be the other side of Christmas, which would represent too much of an operational risk. The bank is therefore simply laying the groundwork ahead of targeting a new issue in January.

“We have the feeling that investors have a lot of time and can prepare for maybe having a new SNS covered bond at the beginning of the year,” he told The Covered Bond Report.

SNS Bank’s last benchmark covered bond was in September 2010. It has raised a mere Eu14m of covered bond and unsecured funding in 2011.

“Almost nothing,” added Genet, “due to our liquidity position. We are still cash rich, but it is good for an issuer to be in the market on a more regular basis so as not to lose contact with the investor community.”

SNS Bank is hoping to issue a benchmark sized deal, with the new iBoxx index minimum of Eu500m at the lower end of its target.

“For us that would be a success,” said Genet. “If we can do more, then we will certainly do so.

“But we don’t have a crystal ball so we will wait and see how the markets are.”

A banker said that other issuers would be roadshowing the same week as SNS Bank.

“We should not read too much into the SNS announcement,” he said. “This announcement is not a surprise or a big deal since a lot of issuers are doing the same thing without announcing it.”

But other syndicate officials said that they were not aware of other issuers with concrete plans to lay the foundations for issuance in the New Year.

“January may not be as active as everybody hopes and prays it will be,” he said. “Issuers are not going to want to tap at high levels.

“SNS has a story they need to clear up through the roadshow,” he added.

Moody’s has assigned a provisional rating of Aaa to Eu1.5bn of December 2021 obligations foncières (Series 4) to be issued by AXA Bank Europe SCF, and a Aaa rating to Series 1 and Series 3 covered bonds of the issuer. The French issuer’s covered bonds, which are backed by Belgian residential mortgage backed securities, have previously been rated by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.