National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon (Photo from BTr Facebook page)
MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Tuesday fully awarded the new seven-year Treasury bond (T-bond) due to high demand.
It offered the debt paper for PHP25 billion and bids were more than twice after reaching PHP61.8 billion.
The T-bond fetched a coupon rate of 6.000 percent, lower than the prevailing rate in the secondary market.
Its average rate stood at 6.012 percent, lower than the previously issued T-bond with the same tenor at 6.943 percent.
“Full award at coupon of 6 percent, lower than BVAL for seven-year tenor,” National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon told journalists in a Viber message, referring to the Bloomberg Valuation Service, which is the benchmark rate for securities issued in the Philippine market and is being traded in the secondary market.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort said BVAL yield as of April 24 stood at 6.01 percent.
Ricafort traced the rate results for the seven-year T-bond to the correction and drop in global crude oil prices to their three-week lows and the correction of the peso-US dollar rate to its one-week lows.
He told the Philippine News Agency that these factors “would lead to further rollback in local fuel pump prices (and) help reduce prices and overall inflation.”
“Large maturities of seven-year Treasury bonds worth more than PHP180 billion since late last week also partly supported the easing of the latest auction yield as these would search for reinvestment opportunities,” he added. (PNA)
