(Bloomberg) -- Banks were stuck with hundreds of millions of Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG’s new debt after the company’s first big bond sale since it was caught in the US commercial real estate maelstrom fell flat, according to people familiar with the matter.

Dealers were left holding as much as €200 million of a €500 million ($526 million) green bond, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Some of the banks are already offering to sell the bond below its issue price, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The difficulty in selling the debt underscores lingering concerns about PBB, even after its debt recovered from a panic sale earlier this year. The offering faced stiff competition from other deals in the market on Wednesday.

During the sale, banks disclosed orders of more than €500 million, which would have been just enough to cover the deal. However, final books were undisclosed, according to a person familiar. Three of the people said that some of the order book fell apart, and struggled to draw enough demand at the price that bankers had set.

The long three-year bond ended up being priced at 180 basis points above midswaps, virtually unchanged from initial price thoughts. This is a rarity in the new issue market as bankers typically take advantage of demand to tighten the spread during the offering. Less than 3% of deals from financial issuers in Europe this year have failed to tighten, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A spokesperson at PBB said the bank used the improvement in secondary market pricing for its bonds to carry out the transaction which had been planned for next year. They also said the initial price thoughts came significantly under the bank’s previous green bond offering in 2023.

Representatives at DZ Bank AG, Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, Erste Group Bank and Banco Santander SA, which arranged the offering, declined to comment. Spokespeople at Danske Bank A/S and UniCredit SpA, the two other arranging banks, did not respond to a request for comment. 

In February, PBB bonds slumped and its most junior debt was indicated below 20 cents on the euro on fears of spreading contagion from the troubled US commercial property market. PBB bonds have recovered since then.

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