Greece

Moody’s yesterday (Wednesday) changed the outlook on Marfin Egnatia Bank’s Baa1 senior debt rating from stable to positive, but downgraded its bank financial strength rating from D+ to D, on stable outlook.

National Bank of Greece has joined the new issue pipeline after awarding the mandate for its inaugural benchmark covered bond. UBI Banca’s debut issue will probably be launched tomorrow (Tuesday), if a technical issue is resolved in time, according to syndicate officials at the leads.

All but one of the issuers whose covered bond programmes’ ratings could have been affected by Moody’s new refinancing margins have acted to stave off any downgrades of their programmes. The exception was Marfin Egnatia Bank, whose covered bonds were cut from Aaa to Aa1. The issuer spoke to The Cover about why it chose to sustain the one notch downgrade.

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Marfin Egnatia Bank from BBB to BBB-, and changed the outlook on two other Greek covered bond issuers from stable to negative.

Greece’s covered bond legislation was recently amended to give banks a third issuance structure option in addition to two that have already been used.

Fitch on Friday lowered its outlook on Alpha Bank and National Bank of Greece from stable to negative.

Moody’s yesterday (Tuesday) downgraded Alpha Bank’s rating from A1 to A2, with a negative outlook.

Moody’s yesterday (Tuesday) upgraded Marfin Egnatia Bank’s rating to match that of its parent bank, Marfin Popular Bank.

Shareholders of ATE Bank, Agricultural Bank of Greece, yesterday (Monday) authorised the bank’s board of directors to set up a covered bond programme worth up to Eu5bn.

National Bank of Greece has completed its covered bond debut, launching two series of Eu1bn each off a Eu10bn programme. The bonds are thought to have been retained for possible use as collateral with the European Central Bank.

Marfin Egnatia has launched the second Greek covered bond programme and the first to use a direct issue structure.

National Bank of Greece is preparing to launch the first directly issued covered bond from Greece, after an amendment to the country’s bankruptcy legislation was passed last week that removed an obstacle to the bank’s plans. Hopes of opening up a second route to direct issuance have, however, receded.