JPMorgan Chase & Co. is selling $716.3 million of bonds tied to loans on commercial properties at higher relative yields than when the debt was last issued in April, just before the worst month for credit since markets froze in 2008.
A top-rated portion maturing in five years may yield about 140 basis points, or 1.4 percentage points, more than the benchmark swap rate, people familiar with the offering said. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC paid a spread of 90 basis points on a similar slice of a $309.7 million deal in this year's only other sale of commercial mortgage-backed bonds, on April 9.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been writing loans to be packaged into bonds to revive the $700 billion market for the debt that froze in 2008.
Wider spreads may discourage lenders from extending credit to avoid getting stuck if markets seize up again, said Joshua Myers, a trader of commercial mortgage-backed debt for Hexagon Securities in New York.
"JPMorgan has to get the deal done," Myers said. "The banks need to get these loans off their balance sheets."
Top-rated bonds backed by commercial mortgages yielded about 309 basis points more than Treasuries as of June 4, according to Barclays PLC data. Spreads reached 312 basis points on May 26, the highest since Feb. 18. A year ago, the securities had a spread of 803 basis points.
Justin Perras, a JPMorgan Chase spokesman, declined to comment.
