THE FINANCE Ministry’s Debt and Liquidity Management Agency (ARDAL) borrowed on the financial markets more than €500 million on January 21. In two auctions it offered to investors government bonds maturing in 2016 and 2018, the SITA newswire reported.
In the first auction of bonds maturing in November 2016, it borrowed €205.6 million, of which €129.6 million came from foreign investors. Overall demand in this auction was much higher and amounted to €718.5 million. Foreign investors alone wanted to buy Slovak government bonds for €314 million. The average price investors asked for in this auction was 99.3141 percent. The resulting final average selling price was 99.5622 percent.
In the second auction, the agency offered to investors bonds maturing in November 2018. There was lower investor demand for the longer maturity, but ARDAL ultimately sold more of these bonds. Overall demand reached €431.2 million, of which the agency accepted €300 million. More than half of the bonds worth €153 million went to foreign investors. The final price in this auction was 1.3102 percent p.a., while the original asking price was 1.3360 percent p.a.
These two auctions were the first domestic auctions of Slovak government bonds this year. But the government already managed a large €1.5 billion syndicated sale of Eurobonds in early January. With this year’s need for debt financing of around €6 billion, this would mean that ARDAL has already managed in the first month to secure one-third of the funding needed for the whole year, SITA wrote.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
