Finland

Oma Savings Bank attracted exceptionally strong demand for its sub-benchmark covered bond on Wednesday, thanks to the double digit spread pickup it paid compared to deals from compatriot Finnish national champions. Caffil, meanwhile, recently issued an ultra-long private placement and said it plans to print further out the curve.

Finland’s Oma Saving’s Bank has mandated leads for a covered bond and follows OP Mortgage Bank which last week issued the first Finnish covered bond since January.

OP Mortgage Bank issued a rare Finnish covered bond on Thursday, pricing the deal flat to where German issuers would have been expected to come, with the sizeable €1.25bn 10 year offering and an alluring pick-up to the issuer’s highly squeezed curve.

Finnish financial services group Sampo has begun cutting its stake in Nordea, one of the Nordic region’s biggest banks, following pressure from Elliott International, the activist hedge fund, to simplify its business.

OP Mortgage Bank is set to become the first bank in Finland to issue a covered bond secured on energy efficient mortgages after announcing a green covered bond framework. The prospective deal follows a growing crowd and comes after a string of debut covered bonds with an environmental, social or governance theme issued this year.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their 2020 funding programmes at the end of October.

Canpack, a Poland-based packaging company, is making its debut in the euro and dollar high yield market this week, as it seeks to shake off the constraints of its private placement-based capital structure and prepare for expansion in the US.

The Single Resolution Board (SRB) will not force all banks to make a linear progression towards their minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL), in an effort to be more flexible during the Covid-19 pandemic. But financial institutions have still called on the authority this week to do more to prevent MREL from becoming a barrier to lending.

Green, social and sustainable issuance has dominated the supranational and agency bond market for a whole month, consistently outpacing conventional supply. That trend looks set to continue with three SRI deals already on screens.

Finland is unlikely to pay another visit to the syndicated or private placement markets this year and will instead look to round off its long-term funding needs with a tap via auction.

Spanish telecoms group MasMovil is preparing a €720m bond, the second part of the financing for its take-private by Cinven, KKR and Providence Private Equity. Most of the €2.9bn financing came through a loan issue, allocated in July, with the bonds readied following shareholder acceptance for the offer last week.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their 2020 funding programmes in mid-September.