After staying out of the public securitisation market throughout 2023, Athena Home Loans has returned to the market with a A$1 billion transaction.

The issue, Olympus 2024-1, was upsized from $750 million at launch, thanks to “very strong demand”.

The margin on the A1 notes was 118 basis points over benchmark and the margin on the A2 notes was 160 bps.

Athena co-founder and chief operating officer Michael Starkey said higher funding costs and intense mortgage market competition made things difficult last year but now Athena is growing its loan book again.

Starkey said: “We had 19 investors in the transaction and 11 of them were new to us. Eighty-six per cent of the investment was offshore. I think there is strong demand for debt globally.”

He said investors who had only participated in bank deals previously were buying non-bank notes.

Athena was launched in 2017 as a specialist prime mortgage lender. Its first public securitisation transaction was 2022. It has also done private issues and whole loan sales.

Its products are distinctive for features such as “automatic rate-matches”, which re-set rates for existing customers if a lower rate is offered to new borrowers; and dynamic pricing, which reduces the interest rate on loans as the loan-to-valuation ratio falls.