THE Philippines is planning to shore up its funds through a dollar-bond issuance, while it also raised P24 billion from the domestic market yesterday, P4 billion more than its original offering.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said yesterday it made a full award in its treasury bills auction, amid strong market demand and as rates across all tenors fell below previous averages and secondary market rates.
The auction committee also opened the tap facility window for the 364-day paper, and as a result, raised an additional P10 billion.
“Market flushed with liquidity and rates dropped with reassuring statements from (BSP) governor Ben (Diokno),” Rosalia de Leon, national treasurer, said through Viber after the auction yesterday.
“Additionally, national government resources augmented by official development assistance inflows and national government announcement of issuing in dollar market,” she added.
S&P Global Ratings yesterday assigned its ‘BBB+’ long-term foreign currency issue rating to the proposed benchmark-size US dollar-denominated senior unsecured notes to be issued by the Philippines.
“The notes represent direct, general, unconditional, unsecured, and unsubordinated obligations of the sovereign, and rank equally with the sovereign’s other unsecured and unsubordinated debt obligations,” S&P Global said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the treasury bills auction was more than 4.5 times oversubscribed with total bids reaching P91.1 billion, prompting the committee to double the accepted non-competitive bids for the 91- and 182-day securities.
With its decision, the committee raised a total of P24 billion, higher than its P20 billion initial offer.
The 91-day IOUs fetched a rate of 2.617 percent, 49.6 basis points (bps) lower than the previous average of 3.113 percent.
Demand reached P29.133 billion, nearly six times the P5 billion offering, with the government awarding P7 billion.
For the half-year securities, the rate was 2.831 percent, 40.8 bps below the previous yield of 3.239 percent.
Tenders were more than five times the P5 billion offering with P27.576 billion, with the auction committee awarding another P7 billion under the said tenor.
Lastly, for the 364-day instrument, the yield was 3.054 percent, 24.1 bps lower than the previous rate of 3.295 percent.
Tenders amounted to P34.445 billion, more than thrice oversubscribed, with the government selling P10 billion as planned.
