The traditionally German-dominated covered bond market appears to be opening up. The covered bonds section of the Euromoney best borrowers survey has always featured a large number of German banks – usually a combination of Landesbanks and real-estate-oriented institutions. Their strong performance has never been a surprise; German-issued Pfandbriefe make up the largest segment of the global covered bond market.
However, the natural order of covered bonds has been shaken up during the past year. German issuers are on the decline, both in terms of the volume of issuance and how this year’s survey respondents rated them.
In 2012, Germany is still the country with most representation in the top 10 – four of the institutions are German, down from five in 2011 – but German banks have seen something of a relegation to the lower reaches of the top 10.