Compagnie de Financement Foncier (Bloomberg Ticker: CFF) has launched its first benchmark issue of 2025. This was priced with competitive pricing conditions. This transaction was carried out within its 5-year and 10-year secondary curve, as well as at a better level of -13 basis points compared to the French issues (OAT) on the 10-year maturity.
In a stable market context, CieFF launched a double-tranche issue of covered bonds. The first tranche, with a maturity of 5 years, was set at €750 million, while the second tranche, at 10 years, amounts to €500 million, for a combined total of €1.25 billion.
After just two hours of bookbuilding, the 5-year tranche attracted over €3 billion in interest, while the 10-year tranche attracted over €1.4 billion. This strong interest drove the book total to over €5 billion, allowing CieFF to tighten the spread by 8 basis points for the 5-year tranche and 6 basis points for the 10-year tranche between launch and final terms. In total, the book after this tightening reached €2.3 billion, with 119 investors participating for the 5-year tranche and over €900 million for the 10-year tranche, involving 70 investors.
In terms of allocation distribution, for the 5-year tranche, asset managers dominate with 36%, closely followed by banks (35.7%) and central banks (22.1%). Geographically, Germany leads with 21.7%, followed by Denmark (18.8%) and France (13.8%).
For the 10-year tranche, banks represent the majority with 36%, followed by central banks (24.4%) and asset managers (19.1%). In terms of geographic distribution, Germany comes first with 30.4%, followed by France (26.7%) and the Netherlands (10%).
The success of this transaction is a testament to the strength of CieFF’s signature, which has reopened the 10-year covered bond market in France, managing to issue at more favourable terms than in France!
