NTMA's long-date bond auction raises €5.23bn
The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) has announced today’s exchange offer and sale of new bonds attracted investor committment of a total of €5.23bn into longer-dated bonds maturing in 2017 and 2020.
Of this, some €4.19bn was new money for the purchase of the two longer-term bonds on offer - a new five-year bond maturing in October 2017 and an existing bond maturing in October 2020.
A further €1.04bn was for the exchange of their holdings of the shorter-dated 2013 and 2014 bonds into the 2017 and 2020 bonds.
The 2017 bond carried a yield of 5.9% and the 2020 bond a yield of 6.1%. The weighted-average yield on the combined transaction was 5.95%.
Today's transactions marked the first time in nearly two years that Ireland had borrowed money on the markets at an interest rate of below 6%.
Two weeks ago the NTMA successfully borrowed money for three months.
The plan was for Ireland to test the waters with the markets in the second half of this year, but in a surprise move this morning, the NTMA announced it was seeking to borrow money for five and eight years today.
The agency also offered bondholders due to get their money back in the next two years the option of extending those loans.
The NTMA confirmed that it had raised €5.23bn in today's auction and that €4.19bn of that was in new money.
Three quarters of the demand for the bonds was from abroad, with significant interest from Scandanavia and North America.
