Lee joined the German bank last month from BNP Paribas in Seoul. There, he was involved in DCM and covered bond structuring for South Korean financial institutions as the French bank played a leading role in that market’s development.

At DZ Bank, Lee will be based in Singapore and report to Matthias Ebert, head of debt capital markets origination financial institutions in Frankfurt.

Ebert said the further expansion of the bank’s DCM team in Singapore will allow it to benefit from the growing business opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Chad brings with him a wealth of experience and strong client relationship,” he said. “He will help us to better understand issuers’ needs in Asia and deliver on the important tasks to create more value in the new issue process for our clients.”

Based in Munich, he reports to Thomas Heinrich, head of funding and money market.

“This is an important and big professional step for me, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my new colleagues and managers for their warm and friendly welcome,” said Winkler-Viti.

“I already feel very comfortable here and look forward to working with them on exciting projects, mastering challenges in the capital market, and contributing to the successful refinancing of the bank.”

Winkler-Viti was previously head of funding and investor relations at Berlin Hyp.

He left the bank last month after 15 years and following its acquisition by Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW).

As part of Berlin Hyp’s team led by head of treasury Sven Schukat, Winkler-Viti collected many accolades on behalf of the lender, but also on a personal basis, notably in the sustainability field.

Best Non-Eurozone Issuer: Santander UK

Pioneer: Berlin Hyp

Deal of the Year: TD

Breakthrough Deal: Danish Ship Finance

Most Impressive Issuer: Aareal

Best Non-Euro Lead Manager: BMO Capital Markets

Best Advisory: Barclays

Best Debut: Paragon

Best Euro Distribution: DZ BANK

Best Global Issuer: CIBC

Best Global House: HSBC

Best Issuance: DNB Boligkreditt

Best Euro House: LBBW

Best Euro Issuer: Caffil

Congratulations to all our winners!

Follow The Covered Bond Report on LinkedIn for photos of the winners from Frankfurt and more!

You can find out more about our awards process here.

Photo: The CBR’s Neil Day with Danish Ship Finance’s Martin Dalskov Linderstrøm and Simon Hajaj Ruby Harmat; Credit: Wonge Bergmann

Best Global House: HSBC

Most Impressive Issuer: Nationwide Building Society

Best Advisory: Barclays

Best Euro Issuer: Crédit Agricole Group

Market Leadership: UniCredit €3bn OBG reopener

Breakout Lead Manager: BMO Capital Markets

Best Debut: Novo Banco

Best Long End Execution: Rabobank

Best Euro Syndicate: Crédit Agricole CIB

Breakthrough Deal: Equitable Bank

European Deal of the Year: Caffil €500m 15 year

Best Euro House: LBBW

Deal of The Year: TD €5.5bn 3s/5s/10s

Congratulations to all our winners!

Follow The Covered Bond Report on LinkedIn for photos of the winners from Frankfurt and more!

Photo: TD’s Cameron Joynt and The CBR’s Neil Day; Credit: Wonge Bergmann

Based in Frankfurt, Ebeling will focus on clients from Canada, the UK and US. Since December 2021 he had held a similar role in Helaba’s FI/SSA origination team, and before that at NordLB in Hannover.

Ebeling reports to Matthias Ebert, who heads DZ’s origination team for financial institutions. The bank expects to announce an intermediate and a junior hire to the FIG team in the coming weeks.

DZ has also hired Philipp Bergmann from Commerzbank to its SSA DCM team, where he will be responsible for Nordic and CEE issuer coverage, reporting to acting head of SSA DCM Kai Poerschke.

“These hires are part of our strategic push to enlarge DZ Bank’s institutional footprint across primary and secondary debt markets,” said Friedrich Luithlen, head of DCM and syndicate, DZ Bank.

The ECB announced the news on Friday, after the decision was taken by its governing council on 2 November following a thorough Eurosystem assessment of Scope’s application, according to the central bank.

“In its assessment the Eurosystem considered all the acceptance criteria for ECAIs, which encompass quantitative and qualitative criteria, as well as any relevant supervisory feedback from the European Securities & Markets Authority (ESMA),” it said.

Scope has been targeting ECB acceptance for many years. Market participants had noted that the lack of ECAI status made it more challenging for the rating agency to secure business, which in turn make it difficult for Scope to build the track record necessary to gain ECB acceptance.

“We thank the ECB for their trust and confidence in accepting Scope as the first European rating agency in the Eurosystem Credit Assessment Framework,” said Florian Schoeller, CEO of Scope Group. “With the ECAF status comes great responsibility.

“I am convinced that Europe needs strong domestic capital market infrastructure to support its independence and sovereignty. Scope Ratings’ recognition by the ECB can play a major role to support the European Capital Markets Union.”

As of June, Scope rates 41 covered bond programmes in 11 countries across Europe, encompassing 1,145 issues totalling €659bn – all triple-A.

“We will be able to compete on an equal footing with the other eligible CRAs and will make sure that in particular for covered bonds the European voice is heard for this truly European product,” said Karlo Fuchs, head of covered bonds at Scope (pictured).

The ECB said it is starting work immediately on integrating Scope’s ratings into Eurosystem IT infrastructure, a process it expects to take several months, after which it will pre-announce the go-live date of their usability for monetary policy purposes.

European deal of the year: ING Bank €4bn 3s/10s

Best advisory: Barclays

Best ESG issuer: Berlin Hyp

Best euro syndicate: Crédit Agricole CIB

Editor’s Award: Caffil

Market reopener: Lloyds €1bn 3s

Best euro issuer: Banco Santander

Best global lead manager: HSBC

Market leadership: CIBC

Most impressive issuer: Deutsche Bank

Covered bond house of the year: LBBW

Global deal of the year: Toronto-Dominion Bank €5bn 3s/7s

Congratulations to all our winners!

Pictured: TD’s Cameron Joynt; Photo: Mario Drescher

Follow The Covered Bond Report on LinkedIn for photos of the winners from Frankfurt and more!

The aim of The Covered Bond Report awards is to recognise those deals, institutions and initiatives that have been best in class or contributed to the development of covered bonds over the past year (1 June 2022-14 May 2023).

Our choice of winners will, as previously, be driven by looking for the 10 to 12 greatest accomplishments or contributors across the market, rather than by sticking to predetermined categories. Please find below a list of the types of categories/activities we have previously considered and might ultimately recognise, which may serve as a helpful guide for your thinking and nominations:

● Best euro issuer, best global issuer, most impressive issuer

● Lead manager: euros, dollars or other currencies

● New issue/deal of the year: by currency; by region; debut; comeback

● ESG, innovation, structuring, liquidity, pioneer…

Last year’s winners and their respective award titles can be found here.

We also reserve an Editor’s Award for recognising either market initiatives or contributions to the covered bond cause by an individual or institution in the past year or a longer period of time.

So please let us have your nominations regarding who or what deserves to be recognised for excellence in the covered bond market in the past year.

You can put forward yourselves and your deals, or others and their achievements – via e-mail or a phone call – by 22 May at the latest.

We will over the coming weeks engage with a broad cross-section of market participants to discuss the merits of candidates. However, the ultimate winners will be decided by The Covered Bond Report.

Please contact managing editor Neil Day with your nominations or any questions:
nday@coveredbondreport.com or +44 20 7483 4633.

The winners will be announced at a drinks reception closing the 10th annual Covered Bond Investor Conference at the Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof in Frankfurt on 14 June, jointly hosted with ICMA and the vdp – conference details can be found here or go directly to registration. We look forward to seeing you there!

The appointments were endorsed by the general assembly of the EMF, the industry body announced today (Monday).

UCI’s Colmer represents the Spanish Mortgage Association (AHE) vis-à-vis the EMF, while Oprescu, who is also general manager of Alpha Bank Group international network, represents the Romanian Association of Banks.

Colomer steps up from being deputy chair and takes over from Elisabeth Minjauw, programme director, sustainable finance, at BNP Paribas Fortis.

“I appreciate the confidence of the members of the EMF in appointing me to the position of Chairman for the next two years, which will present important challenges due to the uncertainties of the current economic and social environments,” he said, “but which will undoubtedly also present significant opportunities in terms of further developing sustainability, accessibility and efficiency in European mortgage markets.

“In this role, I look forward to working with the EMF secretariat to further enhance the EMF as a hub for all stakeholders focusing on housing policy and its financing.”

Colomer’s two-year mandate as EMF chair runs until the end of 2024. Nykredit head of investor relations Morten Bækmand Nielsen, who chairs the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC), has meanwhile taken over Minjauw’s role as president of the EMF-ECBC.

RBI’s new issue was one of four euro benchmarks this week, as supply continued its march towards a possible new record full-year figure, albeit with issuance easing as market participants met for ECBC/Euromoney events in Vienna.

Stadshypotek and UniCredit Bank AG (HVB) also hit the market on Tuesday, with €1bn seven year and green €500m no-grow long five year issues, respectively, the latter achieving strong oversubscription and a negligible new issue premium, in line with a €1bn 4.4 year public sector Pfandbrief for Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) on Monday.

“That’s testimony that this market is working extremely well,” Patrick Seifert, head of primary markets and global syndicate at LBBW, told delegates.

Thomas Cohrs, head of FIG and SSA origination at Helaba, said it was “super-exciting” to see the market coming back to life.

“I’m really happy to see that all the research guys have to throw their analysis into the dustbin,” he said. “It’s going to be twice as much as we all expected, because – guess what – there are investors coming back.”

Panellists noted that this had contributed to the market so far transitioning smoothly from the mid-year end of new net purchases under the European Central Bank’s Asset Purchase Programme – indeed, Cohrs noted that the ECB’s Ad Visser, hitherto the regular target of complaints about CBPP3 at such events, could finally enjoy one without being “bashed”.

“Because you’re slowly moving out of the market, thank God!”

Katarzyna Kapeller, head of ALM at Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), noted that the Austrian bank had been particularly active in covered bonds this year, issuing three of four benchmarks it now has outstanding, with the most recent having been a €500m no-grow four year on Tuesday.

She acknowledged that the latest had been “slow”, after it was priced in the middle of 24bp over mid-swaps area guidance and on the back of a book reported at best as “above €500m”. The spread of 24bp over for the September 2026 trade compared with a secondary level of 18bp for a €500m May 2027 covered bond RBI sold in May and 19bp for a €500m January 2028 it sold in January, according to pre-announcement comparables circulated by the leads.

However, she said that covered bonds had been a good “opener” vis-à-vis investors, noting that in the past month the bank has also issued Tier 2 and senior debt. Although RBI’s first covered bond benchmark of the year was launched in January, before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, when it next approached the market, in May, the Austrian bank had been very much hit by the crisis, recalled Kapeller, with its spreads widening dramatically.

“We were not sure if we can, how we can re-enter the markets,” she said. “So for us, from the beginning, it was clear we need to start with covered bonds, because this is a low beta product, where we can engage with investors, where we can get feedback on a product where hopefully not too much can go wrong when you go out with them. It proved to work very well. I think the covered bond in May worked quite OK – at higher levels, but our cover pool contains also Czech, Bulgarian and Romanian assets, so the margin that we have pays it.

“These three different transactions were all very different,” she added, “but we learned again that the covered bond is a stable tool, even for us in a very difficult market environment, that we can rely on. It’s working in all circumstances, in all times.”

Julien Marchand, head of FI/SSA origination at NordLB, echoed this, noting that with the exception of the summer break, there was at least one covered bond transaction every week this year.

“If we take into account that we have a war starting in Ukraine, that we have super-high inflation that we haven’t seen for many, many years, and that everybody is afraid of the winter – at least in Germany, no one wants to look at their gas bill – it’s an achievement that the product was able – maybe not for every issuer or not for every maturity – but still the product as such delivered market access,” he said. “That’s a pretty good sign and underlines once again the quality of the product.”

Seifert at LBBW contrasted this with other bank funding instruments.

“There have been days and weeks throughout this year where probably it would not have been possible to execute transactions in unsecured with a fair amount of certainty,” he said.

A degree of pre-funding was also contributing to the surge in supply, according to Seifert.

“Because we all know that winter is going to be fairly cold,” he added, “so I guess that’s just a measure of prudency.”

Matthew Cairns, head of credit strategy and regulation at Rabobank, nevertheless saw reasons to be positive about the outlook – also having noted how the EU Covered Bond Directive was supporting developments.

“It’s key to keep in mind that going into QE, going into several rounds of TLTROs, it was a bumpy ride,” he said, “and it’s a bumpy ride coming out of that. There was huge concern around the ECB winding down its purchases, but, by and large, the market got through – we’ve just been talking about the incredible funding that has taken place. Yes, rates are moving, swaps are at a historically elevated level, but the market is getting through it. So, particularly for more international investors, it’s a case of explaining the nature of the European landscape.

“And the fact that there are actually some pretty strong comparisons to what we’ve seen in the US through all rounds of QE and the wind-down process: yes, there’s been a sell-off, but actually post that sell-off, there’s been strong demand, and strong demand for safe haven assets, be that Treasuries or covered bonds. And we’re very confident that’s going to be very much the case that we see here.”

Matthias Ebert, head of DCM FIG origination at DZ Bank, said that covered bonds could meanwhile become more attractive to potential issuers.

“As we see a larger differential between senior and covered, that could lead to additional issuers looking at it,” he said, “and they might be willing to pay up a bit in terms of spread, because they say, well, I’m now saving 60bp, 80bp, 90bp, so I’m willing to give up a few basis points more than before. And that in turn then attracts more investors.”